Gozuacik Devrim, Akkoc Yunus, Ozturk Deniz Gulfem, Kocak Muhammed
Molecular Biology, Genetics and Bioengineering Program, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Center of Excellence for Functional Surfaces and Interfaces for Nano Diagnostics (EFSUN), Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Front Oncol. 2017 Apr 18;7:65. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2017.00065. eCollection 2017.
Macroautophagy (autophagy herein) is a cellular stress response and a survival pathway that is responsible for the degradation of long-lived proteins, protein aggregates, as well as damaged organelles in order to maintain cellular homeostasis. Consequently, abnormalities of autophagy are associated with a number of diseases, including Alzheimers's disease, Parkinson's disease, and cancer. According to the current view, autophagy seems to serve as a tumor suppressor in the early phases of cancer formation, yet in later phases, autophagy may support and/or facilitate tumor growth, spread, and contribute to treatment resistance. Therefore, autophagy is considered as a stage-dependent dual player in cancer. microRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous non-coding small RNAs that negatively regulate gene expression at a post-transcriptional level. miRNAs control several fundamental biological processes, and autophagy is no exception. Furthermore, accumulating data in the literature indicate that dysregulation of miRNA expression contribute to the mechanisms of cancer formation, invasion, metastasis, and affect responses to chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Therefore, considering the importance of autophagy for cancer biology, study of autophagy-regulating miRNA in cancer will allow a better understanding of malignancies and lead to the development of novel disease markers and therapeutic strategies. The potential to provide study of some of these cancer-related miRNAs were also implicated in autophagy regulation. In this review, we will focus on autophagy, miRNA, and cancer connection, and discuss its implications for cancer biology and cancer treatment.
巨自噬（本文中简称自噬）是一种细胞应激反应和生存途径，负责降解长寿蛋白、蛋白聚集体以及受损细胞器，以维持细胞内稳态。因此，自噬异常与多种疾病相关，包括阿尔茨海默病、帕金森病和癌症。根据目前的观点，自噬在癌症形成的早期阶段似乎起着肿瘤抑制作用，但在后期阶段，自噬可能支持和/或促进肿瘤生长、扩散，并导致治疗抵抗。因此，自噬被认为是癌症中一个依赖阶段的双重角色。微小RNA（miRNA）是内源性非编码小RNA，在转录后水平负调控基因表达。miRNA控制着几个基本的生物学过程，自噬也不例外。此外，文献中越来越多的数据表明，miRNA表达失调参与了癌症形成、侵袭、转移的机制，并影响对化疗或放疗的反应。因此，考虑到自噬对癌症生物学的重要性，研究癌症中自噬调节性miRNA将有助于更好地理解恶性肿瘤，并导致开发新的疾病标志物和治疗策略。一些与癌症相关的miRNA在自噬调节中的潜在作用也得到了暗示。在这篇综述中，我们将聚焦于自噬、miRNA和癌症之间的联系，并讨论其对癌症生物学和癌症治疗的影响。
