Hematopathology Section and Lymph Node Registry, University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.
Methods Mol Biol. 2021;2348:27-41. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1581-2_2.
Although the great majority of cancers share a defined group of hallmarks that is responsible for the uncontrolled growth of particular cell types, it is today clear that under the name of cancer we refer to hundreds of different diseases. Furthermore, each of these diseases has an intrinsic variability due to the genetic background in which it develops. The ability to correctly identify these diseases is urgently needed, because each of them may require a specific therapeutic treatment for successful cure. Cancer biomarkers can be extremely valuable tools for efficient diagnosis and prognosis of cancers. In order to succeed in distinguishing between cancer types and progression-associated genetic backgrounds, cancer biomarkers need to have a strong specificity for a particular disease condition. With the development of novel sequencing technologies, it became clear that the set of genes transcribed from human cells is not limited to genes that code for proteins. On the contrary, our cells contain thousands of RNA without any protein-coding potential. The observation that these transcripts have a much higher cell/tissue specificity of expression in comparison to protein-coding genes makes them a potentially very valuable source of novel cancer biomarkers.
虽然绝大多数癌症都具有一组明确的特征，这些特征导致了特定细胞类型的失控生长，但如今很明显，我们所称的癌症实际上是数百种不同的疾病。此外，由于其发展的遗传背景，每种疾病都具有内在的可变性。正确识别这些疾病是非常必要的，因为每一种疾病都可能需要特定的治疗方法才能成功治愈。癌症生物标志物可以成为癌症高效诊断和预后的极有价值的工具。为了成功区分癌症类型和与进展相关的遗传背景，癌症生物标志物需要对特定疾病具有很强的特异性。随着新型测序技术的发展，人们清楚地认识到，从人类细胞转录的基因集不仅限于编码蛋白质的基因。相反，我们的细胞中含有数千种没有任何蛋白质编码潜力的 RNA。与编码蛋白质的基因相比，这些转录本在细胞/组织表达上具有更高的特异性这一观察结果，使它们成为新型癌症生物标志物的潜在非常有价值的来源。
