Department of Life Sciences, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK.
Department of Experimental Therapeutics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA.
Oncogene. 2023 Sep;42(38):2783-2800. doi: 10.1038/s41388-023-02780-w. Epub 2023 Aug 16.
To date, thousands of highly abundant and conserved single-stranded RNA molecules shaped into ring structures (circRNAs) have been identified. CircRNAs are multifunctional molecules that have been shown to regulate gene expression transcriptionally and post-transcriptionally and exhibit distinct tissue- and development-specific expression patterns associated with a variety of normal and disease conditions, including cancer pathogenesis. Over the past years, due to their intrinsic stability and resistance to ribonucleases, particular attention has been drawn to their use as reliable diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers in cancer diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. However, there are some critical caveats to their utility in the clinic. Their circular shape limits their annotation and a complete functional elucidation is lacking. This makes their detection and biomedical application still challenging. Herein, we review the current knowledge of circRNA biogenesis and function, and of their involvement in tumorigenesis and potential utility in cancer-targeted therapy.
迄今为止，已经鉴定出数千种高度丰富且保守的形成环状结构的单链 RNA 分子（circRNA）。circRNA 是多功能分子，已被证明可以转录和转录后调控基因表达，并表现出与多种正常和疾病状况相关的独特组织和发育特异性表达模式，包括癌症发病机制。在过去的几年中，由于它们固有的稳定性和对核糖核酸酶的抗性，人们特别关注它们作为癌症诊断、治疗和预防中可靠的诊断和预后生物标志物的用途。然而，它们在临床上的应用存在一些关键的注意事项。它们的圆形形状限制了它们的注释，并且缺乏完整的功能阐明。这使得它们的检测和生物医学应用仍然具有挑战性。在此，我们综述了 circRNA 生物发生和功能的最新知识，以及它们在肿瘤发生中的作用及其在癌症靶向治疗中的潜在用途。
