Piergentili Roberto, Sechi Stefano
Istituto di Biologia e Patologia Molecolari del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie, Università Sapienza di Roma, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy.
Pharmaceutics. 2025 Apr 4;17(4):471. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics17040471.
Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) are a heterogeneous group of RNA molecules whose classification is mainly based on arbitrary criteria such as the molecule length, secondary structures, and cellular functions. A large fraction of these ncRNAs play a regulatory role regarding messenger RNAs (mRNAs) or other ncRNAs, creating an intracellular network of cross-interactions that allow the fine and complex regulation of gene expression. Altering the balance between these interactions may be sufficient to cause a transition from health to disease and vice versa. This leads to the possibility of intervening in these mechanisms to re-establish health in patients. The regulatory role of ncRNAs is associated with all cancer hallmarks, such as proliferation, apoptosis, invasion, metastasis, and genomic instability. Based on the function performed in carcinogenesis, ncRNAs may behave either as oncogenes or tumor suppressors. However, this distinction is not rigid; some ncRNAs can fall into both classes depending on the tissue considered or the target molecule. Furthermore, some of them are also involved in regulating the response to traditional cancer-therapeutic approaches. In general, the regulation of molecular mechanisms by ncRNAs is very complex and still largely unclear, but it has enormous potential both for the development of new therapies, especially in cases where traditional methods fail, and for their use as novel and more efficient biomarkers. Overall, this review will provide a brief overview of ncRNAs in human cancer biology, with a specific focus on describing the most recent ongoing clinical trials (CT) in which ncRNAs have been tested for their potential as therapeutic agents or evaluated as biomarkers.
非编码RNA(ncRNA)是一类异质性的RNA分子,其分类主要基于诸如分子长度、二级结构和细胞功能等任意标准。这些ncRNA中的很大一部分对信使RNA(mRNA)或其他ncRNA发挥调节作用,形成一个细胞内的交叉相互作用网络,从而实现对基因表达的精细而复杂的调控。改变这些相互作用之间的平衡可能足以导致从健康到疾病的转变,反之亦然。这就带来了干预这些机制以恢复患者健康的可能性。ncRNA的调节作用与所有癌症特征相关,如增殖、凋亡、侵袭、转移和基因组不稳定。根据在致癌过程中所发挥的功能,ncRNA既可以作为癌基因,也可以作为肿瘤抑制因子。然而,这种区分并非绝对;一些ncRNA根据所考虑的组织或靶分子的不同,可能同时属于这两类。此外,它们中的一些还参与调节对传统癌症治疗方法的反应。一般来说,ncRNA对分子机制的调节非常复杂,在很大程度上仍不清楚,但它在新疗法的开发方面具有巨大潜力,特别是在传统方法失效的情况下,同时也具有作为新型且更有效的生物标志物的潜力。总体而言,本综述将简要概述ncRNA在人类癌症生物学中的情况,特别着重描述最近正在进行的临床试验(CT),在这些试验中,ncRNA已被测试其作为治疗剂的潜力或作为生物标志物进行评估。
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