Han Yi-Neng, Xia Sheng-Qiang, Zhang Yuan-Yuan, Zheng Jun-Hua, Li Wei
Department of Stomatology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200072, China.
Odense University Hospital, Department of Nephrology, University of Southern Denmark, Institute for Molecular Medicine, Cardiovascular and Renal Research Institute of Clinical Research, Odense, 999017, Denmark.
Oncotarget. 2017 Jun 2;8(38):64551-64563. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.18350. eCollection 2017 Sep 8.
Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a novel type of universal and diverse endogenous noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) and they form a covalently closed continuous loop without 5' or 3' tails unlike linear RNAs. Most circRNAs are presented with characteristics of abundance, stability, conservatism, and often exhibiting tissue/developmental-stage-specific expression. CircRNAs are generated either from exons or introns by back splicing or lariat introns. CircRNAs play important roles as miRNA sponges, gene transcription and expression regulators, RNA-binding protein (RBP) sponges and protein/peptide translators. Emerging evidence revealed the function of circRNAs in cancer and may potentially serve as a required novel biomarker and therapeutic target for cancer treatment. In this review, we discuss about the origins, characteristics and functions of circRNA and how they work as miRNA sponges, gene transcription and expression regulators, RBP sponges in cancer as well as current research methods of circRNAs, providing evidence for the significance of circRNAs in cancer diagnosis and clinical treatment.
环状RNA（circRNAs）是一类新型的普遍且多样的内源性非编码RNA（ncRNAs），与线性RNA不同，它们形成一个没有5'或3'末端的共价闭合连续环。大多数circRNAs具有丰度高、稳定性强、保守性以及常呈现组织/发育阶段特异性表达的特点。circRNAs可通过反向剪接或套索状内含子由外显子或内含子产生。circRNAs作为微小RNA（miRNA）海绵、基因转录和表达调节因子、RNA结合蛋白（RBP）海绵以及蛋白质/肽翻译器发挥重要作用。新出现的证据揭示了circRNAs在癌症中的功能，并且它们可能潜在地作为癌症治疗所需的新型生物标志物和治疗靶点。在本综述中，我们讨论了circRNA的起源、特征和功能，以及它们在癌症中如何作为miRNA海绵、基因转录和表达调节因子、RBP海绵发挥作用，还有目前circRNAs的研究方法，为circRNAs在癌症诊断和临床治疗中的重要性提供证据。
