Wits/South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) Antiviral Gene Therapy Research Unit, School of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Front Immunol. 2022 Jan 28;13:834650. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.834650. eCollection 2022.
Infection with the hepatitis B virus (HBV) continues to pose a major threat to public health as approximately 292 million people worldwide are currently living with the chronic form of the disease, for which treatment is non-curative. Chronic HBV infections often progress to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) which is one of the world's leading causes of cancer-related deaths. Although the process of hepatocarcinogenesis is multifaceted and has yet to be fully elucidated, several studies have implicated numerous long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) as contributors to the development of HCC. These host-derived lncRNAs, which are often dysregulated as a consequence of viral infection, have been shown to function as signals, decoys, guides, or scaffolds, to modulate gene expression at epigenetic, transcriptional, post-transcriptional and even post-translational levels. These lncRNAs mainly function to promote HBV replication and oncogene expression or downregulate tumor suppressors. Very few lncRNAs are known to suppress tumorigenesis and these are often downregulated in HCC. In this review, we describe the mechanisms by which lncRNA dysregulation in HBV-related HCC promotes tumorigenesis and cancer progression.
乙型肝炎病毒（HBV）感染仍然对公众健康构成重大威胁，因为目前全球约有 2.92 亿人患有慢性乙型肝炎，而这种疾病无法治愈。慢性 HBV 感染常常进展为肝细胞癌（HCC），这是全球癌症相关死亡的主要原因之一。尽管肝癌发生的过程是多方面的，尚未完全阐明，但多项研究表明，许多长链非编码 RNA（lncRNA）是 HCC 发展的原因之一。这些由宿主产生的 lncRNA 通常由于病毒感染而失调，它们可以作为信号、诱饵、向导或支架，在表观遗传、转录、转录后甚至翻译后水平上调节基因表达。这些 lncRNA 主要作用是促进 HBV 复制和致癌基因表达，或下调肿瘤抑制因子。已知很少有 lncRNA 能抑制肿瘤发生，而且这些 lncRNA 在 HCC 中常常下调。在这篇综述中，我们描述了 lncRNA 失调在 HBV 相关 HCC 促进肿瘤发生和癌症进展中的作用机制。
