Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA.
Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Jul 7;21(13):4796. doi: 10.3390/ijms21134796.
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths of men in the Western world. Despite recent advancement in genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics to understand prostate cancer biology and disease progression, castration resistant metastatic prostate cancer remains a major clinical challenge and often becomes incurable. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), about 22-nucleotide-long non-coding RNAs, are a group of regulatory molecules that mainly work through post-transcriptional gene silencing via translational repression. Expression analysis studies have revealed that miRNAs are aberrantly expressed in cancers and have been recognized as regulators of prostate cancer progression. In this critical review, we provide an analysis of reported miRNA functions and conflicting studies as they relate to expression levels of specific miRNAs and prostate cancer progression; oncogenic and/or tumor suppressor roles; androgen receptor signaling; epithelial plasticity; and the current status of diagnostic and therapeutic applications. This review focuses on select miRNAs, highly expressed in normal and cancer tissue, to emphasize the current obstacles faced in utilizing miRNA data for significant impacts on prostate cancer therapeutics.
前列腺癌是西方世界男性癌症相关死亡的第二大主要原因。尽管最近在基因组学、转录组学和蛋白质组学方面取得了进展，以了解前列腺癌生物学和疾病进展，但去势抵抗性转移性前列腺癌仍然是一个主要的临床挑战，而且往往无法治愈。 microRNAs (miRNAs) 是一类约 22 个核苷酸长的非编码 RNA，是一组主要通过翻译抑制进行转录后基因沉默的调节分子。表达分析研究表明，miRNAs 在癌症中异常表达，并被认为是前列腺癌进展的调节因子。在这篇重要的综述中，我们分析了报道的 miRNA 功能和相互矛盾的研究，这些研究涉及特定 miRNA 的表达水平与前列腺癌进展的关系；致癌和/或肿瘤抑制作用；雄激素受体信号转导；上皮可塑性；以及诊断和治疗应用的现状。本综述重点关注在正常组织和肿瘤组织中高表达的选定 miRNA，强调在利用 miRNA 数据对前列腺癌治疗产生重大影响方面目前面临的障碍。
