scholarly journals The role of circRNAs in cancers

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ling-Ping Zhu ◽  
Yun-Jie He ◽  
Jun-Chen Hou ◽  
Xiu Chen ◽  
Si-Ying Zhou ◽  
...  

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are recently regarded as a naturally forming family of widespread and diverse endogenous noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) that may regulate gene expression in mammals. At present, above 30000 circRNAs have already been found, with their unique structures to maintain stability more easily than linear RNAs. Several previous literatures stressed on the important role of circRNAs, whose expression was relatively correlated with patients’ clinical characteristics and grade, in the carcinogenesis of cancer. CircRNAs are involved in many regulatory bioprocesses of malignance, including cell cycle, tumorigenesis, invasion, metastasis, apoptosis, vascularization, through adsorbing RNA as a sponge, binding to RNA-binding protein (RBP), modulating transcription, or influencing translation. Therefore, it is inevitable to further study the interactions between circRNAs and tumors and to develop novel circRNAs as molecular markers or potential targets, which will provide promising applications in early diagnosis, therapeutic evaluation, prognosis prediction of tumors and even gene therapy for tumors.

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (22) ◽  
pp. 12943-12956
Author(s):  
Jen-Hao Yang ◽  
Ming-Wen Chang ◽  
Poonam R Pandey ◽  
Dimitrios Tsitsipatis ◽  
Xiaoling Yang ◽  
...  

Abstract Long noncoding (lnc)RNAs potently regulate gene expression programs in physiology and disease. Here, we describe a key function for lncRNA OIP5-AS1 in myogenesis, the process whereby myoblasts differentiate into myotubes during muscle development and muscle regeneration after injury. In human myoblasts, OIP5-AS1 levels increased robustly early in myogenesis, and its loss attenuated myogenic differentiation and potently reduced the levels of the myogenic transcription factor MEF2C. This effect relied upon the partial complementarity of OIP5-AS1 with MEF2C mRNA and the presence of HuR, an RNA-binding protein (RBP) with affinity for both transcripts. Remarkably, HuR binding to MEF2C mRNA, which stabilized MEF2C mRNA and increased MEF2C abundance, was lost after OIP5-AS1 silencing, suggesting that OIP5-AS1 might serve as a scaffold to enhance HuR binding to MEF2C mRNA, in turn increasing MEF2C production. These results highlight a mechanism whereby a lncRNA promotes myogenesis by enhancing the interaction of an RBP and a myogenic mRNA.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junjian He ◽  
Xiaoxin Ma

Long non-coding RNAs (LncRNAs) can bind to other proteins or RNAs to regulate gene expression, and its role in tumors has been extensively studied. A common RNA binding protein, UPF1, is also a key factor in a variety of RNA decay pathways. RNA decay pathways serve to control levels of particular RNA molecules. The expression of UPF1 is often dysregulated in tumors, an observation which suggests that UPF1 contributes to development of a variety of tumors. Herein, we review evidence from studies of fourteen lncRNAs interact with UPF1. The interaction between lncRNA and UPFI provide fundamental basis for cell transformation and tumorigenic growth.


Author(s):  
Charlotte A.M. Cecil

The biopsychosocial (BPS) model of psychiatry has had a major impact on our modern conceptualization of mental illness as a complex, multi-determined phenomenon. Yet, interdisciplinary BPS work remains the exception, rather than the rule in psychiatry. It has been suggested that this may stem in part from a failure of the BPS model to clearly delineate the mechanisms through which biological, psychological, and social factors co-act in the development of mental illness. This chapter discusses how epigenetic processes that regulate gene expression, such as DNA methylation, are fast emerging as a candidate mechanism for BPS interactions, with potentially widespread implications for the way that psychiatric disorders are understood, assessed, and, perhaps in future, even treated.


2020 ◽  
Vol 295 (26) ◽  
pp. 8736-8745 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akihiko Sakamoto ◽  
Yusuke Terui ◽  
Takeshi Uemura ◽  
Kazuei Igarashi ◽  
Keiko Kashiwagi

Polyamines regulate gene expression in Escherichia coli by translationally stimulating mRNAs encoding global transcription factors. In this study, we focused on histone acetylation, one of the mechanisms of epigenetic regulation of gene expression, to attempt to clarify the role of polyamines in the regulation of gene expression in eukaryotes. We found that activities of histone acetyltransferases in both the nucleus and cytoplasm decreased significantly in polyamine-reduced mouse mammary carcinoma FM3A cells. Although protein levels of histones H3 and H4 did not change in control and polyamine-reduced cells, acetylation of histones H3 and H4 was greatly decreased in the polyamine-reduced cells. Next, we used control and polyamine-reduced cells to identify histone acetyltransferases whose synthesis is stimulated by polyamines. We found that polyamines stimulate the translation of histone acetyltransferases GCN5 and HAT1. Accordingly, GCN5- and HAT1-catalyzed acetylation of specific lysine residues on histones H3 and H4 was stimulated by polyamines. Consistent with these findings, transcription of genes required for cell proliferation was enhanced by polyamines. These results indicate that polyamines regulate gene expression by enhancing the expression of the histone acetyltransferases GCN5 and HAT1 at the level of translation. Mechanistically, polyamines enhanced the interaction of microRNA-7648-5p (miR-7648-5p) with the 5′-UTR of GCN5 mRNA, resulting in stimulation of translation due to the destabilization of the double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) between the 5′-UTR and the ORF of GCN5 mRNA. Because HAT1 mRNA has a short 5′-UTR, polyamines may enhance initiation complex formation directly on this mRNA.


1994 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 461-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pilar Colorado ◽  
Antonio Rodriguez ◽  
Gregorio Nicolas ◽  
Dolores Rodriguez

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Si-ying Zhou ◽  
Wei Chen ◽  
Su-jin Yang ◽  
Zi-han Xu ◽  
Jia-hua Hu ◽  
...  

AbstractBreast cancer (BCa) is one of the most frequently diagnosed cancers and leading cause of cancer deaths among females worldwide. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a new class of endogenous regulatory RNAs characterized by circular shape resulting from covalently closed continuous loops that are capable of regulating gene expression at transcription or post-transcription levels. With the unique structures, circRNAs are resistant to exonuclease RNase R and maintain stability more easily than linear RNAs. Recently, an increasing number of circRNAs are discovered and reported to show different expression in BCa and these dysregulated circRNAs were correlated with patients’ clinical characteristics and grade in the progression of BCa. CircRNAs participate in the bioprocesses of carcinogenesis of BCa, including cell proliferation, apoptosis, cell cycle, tumorigenesis, vascularization, cell invasion, migration as well as metastasis. Here we concentrated on biogenesis and function of circRNAs, summarized their implications in BCa and discussed their potential as diagnostic and therapeutic targets for BCa.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noam Shomron ◽  
David Golan ◽  
Eran Hornstein

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression through translational inhibition or mRNA degradation by binding to sequences on the target mRNA. miRNA regulation appears to be the most abundant mode of posttranscriptional regulation affecting 50% of the transcriptome. miRNA genes are often clustered and/or located in introns, and each targets a variable and often large number of mRNAs. Here we discuss the genomic architecture of animal miRNA genes and their evolving interaction with their target mRNAs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dustin Haskell ◽  
Anna Zinovyeva

Abstract MicroRNAs (miRNAs) and RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level, but the extent to which these key regulators of gene expression coordinate their activities and the precise mechanisms of this coordination are not well understood. RBPs often have recognizable RNA binding domains that correlate with specific protein function. Recently, several RBPs containing K homology (KH) RNA binding domains were shown to work with miRNAs to regulate gene expression, raising the possibility that KH domains may be important for coordinating with miRNA pathways in gene expression regulation. To ascertain whether additional KH domain proteins functionally interact with miRNAs during Caenorhabditis elegans development, we knocked down twenty-four genes encoding KH-domain proteins in several miRNA sensitized genetic backgrounds. Here, we report that a majority of the KH domain-containing genes genetically interact with multiple miRNAs and Argonaute alg-1. Interestingly, two KH domain genes, predicted splicing factors sfa-1 and asd-2, genetically interacted with all of the miRNA mutants tested, whereas other KH domain genes showed genetic interactions only with specific miRNAs. Our domain architecture and phylogenetic relationship analyses of the C. elegans KH domain-containing proteins revealed potential groups that may share both structure and function. Collectively, we show that many C. elegans KH domain RBPs functionally interact with miRNAs, suggesting direct or indirect coordination between these two classes of post-transcriptional gene expression regulators.


MicroRNA ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ling Lin ◽  
Kebin Hu

: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs (19~25 nucleotides) that regulate gene expression at a post-transcriptional level through repression of mRNA translation or mRNA decay. miR-147, which was initially discovered in mouse spleen and macrophages, has been shown to correlate with coronary atherogenesis and inflammatory bowel disease and modulate macrophage functions and inflammation through TLR-4. The altered miR-147 level has been shown in various human diseases, including infectious disease, cancer, cardiovascular disease, a neurodegenerative disorder, etc. This review will focus on the current understanding regarding the role of miR-147 in inflammation and diseases.


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