Sousa Nunes Fábio, Moreira-Gonçalves Daniel, Henriques-Coelho Tiago
Department of Physiology and Cardiothoracic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Porto, Portugal.
Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Porto, Portugal.
Crit Rev Eukaryot Gene Expr. 2017;27(2):151-161. doi: 10.1615/CritRevEukaryotGeneExpr.2017019085.
Cachexia, or muscle wasting, is a complex metabolic syndrome associated with an underlying illness and characterized by loss of muscle mass. It is a rather prevalent condition, with impacts on patient survival, response to treatment, and quality of life. Treatment options are sparse because of cachexia's multifactorial pathogenesis. Recently, attention has focused on microRNAs (miRNAs) as potential therapeutic targets of several diseases. miRNAs are small, 18- to 25-base-long constructs that regulate gene expression on a post-transcriptional level, selectively activating or repressing elements of specific signaling pathways. In this review, we investigated whether miRNAs play any role in cachexia's biochemical pathways and if miRNA targeting has any significant impact on preclinical models of cachexia.
恶病质，即肌肉萎缩，是一种与潜在疾病相关的复杂代谢综合征，其特征为肌肉质量的丧失。它是一种相当普遍的病症，会影响患者的生存率、对治疗的反应以及生活质量。由于恶病质的发病机制具有多因素性，其治疗选择有限。最近，人们将注意力集中在微小RNA（miRNA）作为几种疾病的潜在治疗靶点上。miRNA是长度为18至25个碱基的小分子结构，可在转录后水平调节基因表达，选择性地激活或抑制特定信号通路的元件。在本综述中，我们研究了miRNA是否在恶病质的生化途径中发挥任何作用，以及靶向miRNA是否对恶病质的临床前模型有任何重大影响。
