Laboratory for Translational Oncology and Personalized Medicine, Rashid Latif Medical College, Lahore 54000, Pakistan.
Department of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology, International Islamic University, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan.
Int J Mol Sci. 2017 Oct 2;18(10):2089. doi: 10.3390/ijms18102089.
MicroRNA-34a (miR-34a) is a tumor suppressor that has attracted considerable attention in recent years. It modulates cancer cell invasion, metastasis, and drug resistance, and has also been evaluated as a diagnostic and/or prognostic biomarker. A number of targets of miR-34a have been identified, including some other non-coding RNAs, and it is believed that the modulation of these myriads of targets underlines the versatile role of miR-34a in cancer progression and pathogenesis. Seemingly appealing results from preclinical studies have advocated the testing of miR-34a in clinical trials. However, the results obtained are not very encouraging and there is a need to re-interpret how miR-34a behaves in a context dependent manner in different cancers. In this review, we have attempted to summarize the most recent evidence related to the regulation of different genes and non-coding RNAs by miR-34a and the advances in the field of nanotechnology for the targeted delivery of miR-34a-based therapeutics and mimics. With the emergence of data that contradicts miR-34a's tumor suppressive function, it is important to understand miR-34a's precise functioning, with the aim to establish its role in personalized medicine and to apply this knowledge for the identification of individual patients that are likely to benefit from miR-34a-based therapy.
微 RNA-34a (miR-34a) 是一种肿瘤抑制因子，近年来受到了广泛关注。它调节癌细胞的侵袭、转移和耐药性，也被评估为一种诊断和/或预后生物标志物。已经鉴定出 miR-34a 的许多靶标，包括一些其他非编码 RNA，人们认为这些靶标的调节突出了 miR-34a 在癌症进展和发病机制中的多功能作用。临床前研究中看似吸引人的结果主张在临床试验中测试 miR-34a。然而，获得的结果并不十分令人鼓舞，需要重新解释 miR-34a 在不同癌症中如何以依赖上下文的方式发挥作用。在这篇综述中，我们试图总结与 miR-34a 调节不同基因和非编码 RNA 相关的最新证据，以及纳米技术在靶向递送 miR-34a 治疗药物和模拟物方面的进展。随着与 miR-34a 的肿瘤抑制功能相矛盾的数据的出现，了解 miR-34a 的精确功能非常重要，目的是确定其在个性化医学中的作用，并将这一知识应用于识别可能受益于 miR-34a 治疗的个体患者。
