Cammarata Giuseppe, Barraco Nadia, Giusti Ilaria, Gristina Valerio, Dolo Vincenza, Taverna Simona
Institute of Translational Pharmacology (IFT), National Research Council of Italy (CNR), 90146 Palermo, Italy.
Section of Medical Oncology, Department of Surgical, Oncological and Oral Sciences, University of Palermo, 90127 Palermo, Italy.
Cancers (Basel). 2022 Jul 13;14(14):3404. doi: 10.3390/cancers14143404.
Ovarian cancer (OC) is one of the most lethal gynecologic malignancies in females worldwide. OC is frequently diagnosed at an advanced stage due to a lack of specific symptoms and effective screening tests, resulting in a poor prognosis for patients. Age, genetic alterations, and family history are the major risk factors for OC pathogenesis. Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying OC progression, identifying new biomarkers for early detection, and discovering potential targets for new drugs are urgent needs. Liquid biopsy (LB), used for cancer detection and management, consists of a minimally invasive approach and practical alternative source to investigate tumor alterations by testing extracellular vesicles (EVs), circulating tumor cells, tumor-educated platelets, and cell-free nucleic acids. EVs are nanosize vesicles shuttling proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids, such as DNA, RNA, and non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), that can induce phenotypic reprogramming of target cells. EVs are natural intercellular shuttles for ncRNAs, such as microRNAs (miRNAs) and circular-RNAs (circRNAs), known to have regulatory effects in OC. Here we focus on the involvement of circRNAs and miRNAs in OC cancer progression. The circRNA-microRNA-mRNA axis has been investigated with Circbank and miRwalk analysis, unraveling the intricate and detailed regulatory network created by EVs, ncRNAs, and mRNAs in OC.
卵巢癌（OC）是全球女性中最致命的妇科恶性肿瘤之一。由于缺乏特异性症状和有效的筛查测试，OC常常在晚期才被诊断出来，导致患者预后不良。年龄、基因改变和家族史是OC发病机制的主要危险因素。了解OC进展的分子机制、识别早期检测的新生物标志物以及发现新药的潜在靶点是当务之急。用于癌症检测和管理的液体活检（LB）是一种微创方法，也是一种实用的替代来源，可通过检测细胞外囊泡（EVs）、循环肿瘤细胞、肿瘤诱导血小板和游离核酸来研究肿瘤改变。EVs是纳米大小的囊泡，可运输蛋白质、脂质和核酸，如DNA、RNA和非编码RNA（ncRNAs），它们可诱导靶细胞的表型重编程。EVs是ncRNAs（如微小RNA（miRNAs）和环状RNA（circRNAs））的天然细胞间穿梭载体，已知它们在OC中具有调节作用。在这里，我们重点关注circRNAs和miRNAs在OC癌症进展中的作用。通过Circbank和miRwalk分析对circRNA-微小RNA-信使RNA轴进行了研究，揭示了EVs、ncRNAs和mRNAs在OC中形成的复杂而详细的调控网络。
