Park Joonhyeong, Ahn Se Hee, Shin Myung Geun, Kim Hak Kyun, Chang Suhwan
Department of Life Science, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, Korea.
Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Asan Medical Center, Seoul 05505, Korea.
Cancers (Basel). 2020 Sep 27;12(10):2773. doi: 10.3390/cancers12102773.
An epigenetic change is a heritable genetic alteration that does not involve any nucleotide changes. While the methylation of specific DNA regions such as CpG islands or histone modifications, including acetylation or methylation, have been investigated in detail, the role of small RNAs in epigenetic regulation is largely unknown. Among the many types of small RNAs, tRNA-derived small RNAs (tsRNAs) represent a class of noncoding small RNAs with multiple roles in diverse physiological processes, including neovascularization, sperm maturation, immune modulation, and stress response. Regarding these roles, several pioneering studies have revealed that dysregulated tsRNAs are associated with human diseases, such as systemic lupus, neurological disorder, metabolic disorder, and cancer. Moreover, recent findings suggest that tsRNAs regulate the expression of critical genes linked with these diseases by a variety of mechanisms, including epigenetic regulation. In this review, we will describe different classes of tsRNAs based on their biogenesis and will focus on their role in epigenetic regulation.
表观遗传变化是一种不涉及任何核苷酸变化的可遗传基因改变。虽然特定DNA区域（如CpG岛）的甲基化或组蛋白修饰（包括乙酰化或甲基化）已得到详细研究，但小RNA在表观遗传调控中的作用在很大程度上仍不清楚。在众多类型的小RNA中，tRNA衍生的小RNA（tsRNA）是一类非编码小RNA，在包括新血管形成、精子成熟、免疫调节和应激反应等多种生理过程中具有多种作用。关于这些作用，一些开创性研究表明，失调的tsRNA与人类疾病相关，如系统性红斑狼疮、神经紊乱、代谢紊乱和癌症。此外，最近的研究结果表明，tsRNA通过多种机制（包括表观遗传调控）调节与这些疾病相关的关键基因的表达。在本综述中，我们将根据tsRNA的生物合成描述不同类型的tsRNA，并将重点关注它们在表观遗传调控中的作用。
