Ciafrè Silvia Anna, Russo Monia, Michienzi Alessandro, Galardi Silvia
Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy.
Department of Biology, University of Rome Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Jan 17;24(3):1828. doi: 10.3390/ijms24031828.
Decades of research have investigated the mechanisms that lead to the origin of cancer, striving to identify tumor-initiating cells. These cells, also known as cancer stem cells, are characterized by the ability to self-renew, to give rise to differentiated tumor populations, and on a larger scale, are deemed responsible not only for tumor initiation but also for recurrent tumors, often resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Long noncoding RNAs are RNA molecules longer than 200 nt, lacking the ability to code for proteins, with recognized roles as fine regulators of gene expression. They can exert these functions through a variety of mechanisms, acting at almost all steps of gene expression, from modulation of the epigenetic state of chromatin to modulation of protein stability. In all cases, lncRNAs do not work alone, but they always interact with other RNA molecules, either coding or non-coding, or with protein factors. In this review, we summarize the latest results obtained about the involvement of lncRNAs in the initiating cells of several types of tumors, and highlight the different mechanisms through which they work, while discussing how the modulation of a lncRNA can affect several aspects of tumor onset and progression.
数十年来，研究人员一直在探究导致癌症起源的机制，致力于识别肿瘤起始细胞。这些细胞，也被称为癌症干细胞，其特征在于具有自我更新的能力，能够产生分化的肿瘤群体，并且从更大范围来看，它们不仅被认为是肿瘤起始的原因，也是复发性肿瘤的根源，这些复发性肿瘤往往对化疗和放疗具有抗性。长链非编码RNA是长度超过200个核苷酸的RNA分子，不具备编码蛋白质的能力，被公认为是基因表达的精细调节因子。它们可以通过多种机制发挥这些功能，在基因表达的几乎所有步骤中起作用，从染色质表观遗传状态的调节到蛋白质稳定性的调节。在所有情况下，长链非编码RNA并非单独起作用，而是总是与其他RNA分子相互作用，这些分子可以是编码RNA或非编码RNA，也可以与蛋白质因子相互作用。在这篇综述中，我们总结了关于长链非编码RNA在几种类型肿瘤的起始细胞中的作用所获得的最新研究成果，强调了它们发挥作用的不同机制，同时讨论了长链非编码RNA的调节如何影响肿瘤发生和发展的多个方面。
