Molecular Stethoscope Inc., South San Francisco, CA, 94080, USA.
Department of Molecular Diagnostics and Experimental Therapeutics, Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, Monrovia, CA, 91016, USA.
Br J Cancer. 2022 Feb;126(3):351-360. doi: 10.1038/s41416-021-01672-8. Epub 2022 Jan 10.
Although non-coding RNAs have long been considered as non-functional "junk" RNAs, accumulating evidence in the past decade indicates that they play a critical role in pathogenesis of various cancers. In addition to their biological significance, the recognition that their expression levels are frequently dysregulated in multiple cancers have fueled the interest for exploiting their clinical potential as cancer biomarkers. In particular, microRNAs (miRNAs), a subclass of small non-coding RNAs that epigenetically modulate gene-transcription, have become one of the most well-studied substrates for the development of liquid biopsy biomarkers for cancer patients. The emergence of high-throughput sequencing technologies has enabled comprehensive molecular characterisation of various non-coding RNA expression profiles in multiple cancers. Furthermore, technological advances for quantifying lowly expressed RNAs in the circulation have facilitated robust identification of previously unrecognised and undetectable biomarkers in cancer patients. Here we summarise the latest progress on the utilisation of non-coding RNAs as non-invasive cancer biomarkers. We evaluated the suitability of multiple non-coding RNA types as blood-based cancer biomarkers and examined the impact of recent technological breakthroughs on the development of non-invasive molecular biomarkers in cancer.
尽管非编码 RNA 长期以来一直被认为是无功能的“垃圾” RNA，但过去十年中的大量证据表明，它们在多种癌症的发病机制中起着关键作用。除了它们的生物学意义之外，人们认识到它们的表达水平在多种癌症中经常失调，这激发了人们对利用它们作为癌症生物标志物的临床潜力的兴趣。特别是 microRNAs（miRNAs），一种小的非编码 RNA，能够通过表观遗传方式调节基因转录，已成为开发癌症患者液体活检生物标志物的研究最广泛的底物之一。高通量测序技术的出现使人们能够对多种癌症中的各种非编码 RNA 表达谱进行全面的分子特征分析。此外，用于定量检测循环中低表达 RNA 的技术进步促进了对癌症患者中以前无法识别和检测到的生物标志物的稳健鉴定。在这里，我们总结了将非编码 RNA 用作非侵入性癌症生物标志物的最新进展。我们评估了多种非编码 RNA 类型作为基于血液的癌症生物标志物的适用性，并研究了最近的技术突破对癌症无创分子生物标志物开发的影响。
