scholarly journals Long non-coding RNAs in brain tumors: roles and potential as therapeutic targets

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sung-Hyun Kim ◽  
Key-Hwan Lim ◽  
Sumin Yang ◽  
Jae-Yeol Joo

AbstractBrain tumors are associated with adverse outcomes despite improvements in radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and photodynamic therapy. However, treatment approaches are evolving, and new biological phenomena are being explored to identify the appropriate treatment of brain tumors. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), a type of non-coding RNA longer than 200 nucleotides, regulate gene expression at the transcriptional, post-transcriptional, and epigenetic levels and are involved in a variety of biological functions. Recent studies on lncRNAs have revealed their aberrant expression in various cancers, with distinct expression patterns associated with their instrumental roles in cancer. Abnormal expression of lncRNAs has also been identified in brain tumors. Here, we review the potential roles of lncRNAs and their biological functions in the context of brain tumors. We also summarize the current understanding of the molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways related to lncRNAs that may guide clinical trials for brain tumor therapy.

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 3711
Author(s):  
Melina J. Sedano ◽  
Alana L. Harrison ◽  
Mina Zilaie ◽  
Chandrima Das ◽  
Ramesh Choudhari ◽  
...  

Genome-wide RNA sequencing has shown that only a small fraction of the human genome is transcribed into protein-coding mRNAs. While once thought to be “junk” DNA, recent findings indicate that the rest of the genome encodes many types of non-coding RNA molecules with a myriad of functions still being determined. Among the non-coding RNAs, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) and enhancer RNAs (eRNA) are found to be most copious. While their exact biological functions and mechanisms of action are currently unknown, technologies such as next-generation RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) and global nuclear run-on sequencing (GRO-seq) have begun deciphering their expression patterns and biological significance. In addition to their identification, it has been shown that the expression of long non-coding RNAs and enhancer RNAs can vary due to spatial, temporal, developmental, or hormonal variations. In this review, we explore newly reported information on estrogen-regulated eRNAs and lncRNAs and their associated biological functions to help outline their markedly prominent roles in estrogen-dependent signaling.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (16) ◽  
pp. 8461
Author(s):  
Emanuela Chiarella ◽  
Annamaria Aloisio ◽  
Stefania Scicchitano ◽  
Heather Mandy Bond ◽  
Maria Mesuraca

Powerful bioinformatics tools have provided a wealth of novel miRNA–transcription factor networks crucial in controlling gene regulation. In this review, we focus on the biological functions of miRNAs targeting ZNF521, explaining the molecular mechanisms by which the dysregulation of this axis contributes to malignancy. ZNF521 is a stem cell-associated co-transcription factor implicated in the regulation of hematopoietic, neural, and mesenchymal stem cells. The aberrant expression of ZNF521 transcripts, frequently associated with miRNA deregulation, has been detected in several tumors including pancreatic, hepatocellular, gastric, bladder transitional cell carcinomas as well as in breast and ovarian cancers. miRNA expression profiling tools are currently identifying a multitude of miRNAs, involved together with oncogenes and TFs in the regulation of oncogenesis, including ZNF521, which may be candidates for diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers of cancer.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohsen Sheykhhasan ◽  
Yaghoub Ahmadyousefi ◽  
Reihaneh Seyedebrahimi ◽  
Hamid Tanzadehpanah ◽  
Hamed Manoochehri ◽  
...  

Abstract Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have important roles in regulating the expression of genes and act as biomarkers in the initial development of different cancers. Increasing research studies have verified that dysregulation of lncRNAs occurs in various pathological processes including tumorigenesis and cancer progression. Among the different lncRNAs, DLX6-AS1 has been reported to act as an oncogene in the development and prognoses of different cancers, by affecting many different signalling pathways. This review summarises and analyses the recent research studies describing the biological functions of DLX6-AS1, its overall effect on signalling pathways and the molecular mechanisms underlying its action on the expression of genes in multiple human cancers. Our critical analysis suggests that different signalling pathways associated to this lncRNA may be used as a biomarker for diagnosis, or targets of treatment in cancers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Xu ◽  
Bei Wang ◽  
Yuxuan Cai ◽  
Jinlan Chen ◽  
Xing Lv ◽  
...  

Background: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) have been identified as novel molecular regulators in cancers. LncRNA ADAMTS9-AS2 can mediate the occurrence and development of cancer through various ways such as regulating miRNAs, activating the classical signaling pathways in cancer, and so on, which have been studied by many scholars. In this review, we summarize the molecular mechanisms of ADAMTS9-AS2 in different human cancers. Methods: Through a systematic search of PubMed, lncRNA ADAMTS9-AS2 mediated molecular mechanisms in cancer are summarized inductively. Results: ADAMTS9-AS2 aberrantly expression in different cancers is closely related to cancer proliferation, invasion, migration, inhibition of apoptosis. The involvement of ADAMTS9-AS2 in DNA methylation, mediating PI3K / Akt / mTOR signaling pathways, regulating miRNAs and proteins, and such shows its significant potential as a therapeutic cancer target. Conclusion: LncRNA ADAMTS9-AS2 can become a promising biomolecular marker and a therapeutic target for human cancer.


ExRNA ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fangfang Jin ◽  
Zhigang Guo

Abstract The discovery of small non-coding RNAs, such as miRNA and piRNA, has dramatically changed our understanding of the role RNA plays in organisms. Recent studies show that a novel small non-coding RNA generated from cleavage of tRNA or pre-tRNA, called tRNA-derived small RNA (tsRNA), serves as a new regulator of gene expression. tsRNA has been determined participate in regulating some specific physiological and pathological processes. Although knowledge regarding the biological roles of miRNA and piRNA is expanding, whether tsRNAs play similar roles remains poorly understood. Here, we review the current knowledge regarding the mechanisms of action and biological functions of tsRNAs in intracellular, extracellular and intergenerational inheritance, and highlight the potential application of tsRNAs in human diseases, and present the current problems and future research directions.


Cancers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 5944
Author(s):  
Jianfei Tang ◽  
Xiaodan Fang ◽  
Juan Chen ◽  
Haixia Zhang ◽  
Zhangui Tang

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a type of malignancy with high mortality, leading to poor prognosis worldwide. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying OSCC carcinogenesis have not been fully understood. Recently, the discovery and characterization of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have revealed their regulatory importance in OSCC. Abnormal expression of lncRNAs has been broadly implicated in the initiation and progress of tumors. In this review, we summarize the functions and molecular mechanisms regarding these lncRNAs in OSCC. In addition, we highlight the crosstalk between lncRNA and tumor microenvironment (TME), and discuss the potential applications of lncRNAs as diagnostic and prognostic tools and therapeutic targets in OSCC. Notably, we also discuss lncRNA-targeted therapeutic techniques including CRISPR-Cas9 as well as immune checkpoint therapies to target lncRNA and the PD-1/PD-L1 axis. Therefore, this review presents the future perspectives of lncRNAs in OSCC therapy, but more research is needed to allow the applications of these findings to the clinic.


Author(s):  
Hongying Zhao ◽  
Jian Shi ◽  
Yunpeng Zhang ◽  
Aimin Xie ◽  
Lei Yu ◽  
...  

Abstract Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are associated with human diseases. Although lncRNA–disease associations have received significant attention, no online repository is available to collect lncRNA-mediated regulatory mechanisms, key downstream targets, and important biological functions driven by disease-related lncRNAs in human diseases. We thus developed LncTarD (http://biocc.hrbmu.edu.cn/LncTarD/ or http://bio-bigdata.hrbmu.edu.cn/LncTarD), a manually-curated database that provides a comprehensive resource of key lncRNA–target regulations, lncRNA-influenced functions, and lncRNA-mediated regulatory mechanisms in human diseases. LncTarD offers (i) 2822 key lncRNA–target regulations involving 475 lncRNAs and 1039 targets associated with 177 human diseases; (ii) 1613 experimentally-supported functional regulations and 1209 expression associations in human diseases; (iii) important biological functions driven by disease-related lncRNAs in human diseases; (iv) lncRNA–target regulations responsible for drug resistance or sensitivity in human diseases and (v) lncRNA microarray, lncRNA sequence data and transcriptome data of an 11 373 pan-cancer patient cohort from TCGA to help characterize the functional dynamics of these lncRNA–target regulations. LncTarD also provides a user-friendly interface to conveniently browse, search, and download data. LncTarD will be a useful resource platform for the further understanding of functions and molecular mechanisms of lncRNA deregulation in human disease, which will help to identify novel and sensitive biomarkers and therapeutic targets.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 1027 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazimierczyk ◽  
Kasprowicz ◽  
Kasprzyk ◽  
Wrzesinski

The application of a new generation of sequencing techniques has revealed that most of the genome has already been transcribed. However, only a small part of the genome codes proteins. The rest of the genome "dark matter” belongs to divergent groups of non-coding RNA (ncRNA), that is not translated into proteins. There are two groups of ncRNAs, which include small and long non-coding RNAs (sncRNA and lncRNA respectively). Over the last decade, there has been an increased interest in lncRNAs and their interaction with cellular components. In this review, we presented the newest information about the human lncRNA interactome. The term lncRNA interactome refers to cellular biomolecules, such as nucleic acids, proteins, and peptides that interact with lncRNA. The lncRNA interactome was characterized in the last decade, however, understanding what role the biomolecules associated with lncRNA play and the nature of these interactions will allow us to better understand lncRNA's biological functions in the cell. We also describe a set of methods currently used for the detection of lncRNA interactome components and the analysis of their interactions. We think that such a holistic and integrated analysis of the lncRNA interactome will help to better understand its potential role in the development of organisms and cancers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (D1) ◽  
pp. D969-D980 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiaxin Chen ◽  
Jian Zhang ◽  
Yu Gao ◽  
Yanyu Li ◽  
Chenchen Feng ◽  
...  

Abstract Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been proven to play important roles in transcriptional processes and various biological functions. Establishing a comprehensive collection of human lncRNA sets is urgent work at present. Using reference lncRNA sets, enrichment analyses will be useful for analyzing lncRNA lists of interest submitted by users. Therefore, we developed a human lncRNA sets database, called LncSEA, which aimed to document a large number of available resources for human lncRNA sets and provide annotation and enrichment analyses for lncRNAs. LncSEA supports >40 000 lncRNA reference sets across 18 categories and 66 sub-categories, and covers over 50 000 lncRNAs. We not only collected lncRNA sets based on downstream regulatory data sources, but also identified a large number of lncRNA sets regulated by upstream transcription factors (TFs) and DNA regulatory elements by integrating TF ChIP-seq, DNase-seq, ATAC-seq and H3K27ac ChIP-seq data. Importantly, LncSEA provides annotation and enrichment analyses of lncRNA sets associated with upstream regulators and downstream targets. In summary, LncSEA is a powerful platform that provides a variety of types of lncRNA sets for users, and supports lncRNA annotations and enrichment analyses. The LncSEA database is freely accessible at http://bio.liclab.net/LncSEA/index.php.


2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 1188-1198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jidong Sui ◽  
Xuejun Yang ◽  
Wenjing Qi ◽  
Kun Guo ◽  
Zhenming Gao ◽  
...  

Background/Aims: Recent evidence has indicated the crucial regulatory roles of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in tumour biology. In hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), aberrant expression of lncRNAs plays an essential role in HCC tumourigenesis. However, the potential roles and regulatory mechanisms of the novel human lncRNA, Linc-USP16, in HCC are unclear. Methods: To investigate the function of Linc-USP16 in HCC, we first analysed the expression levels of Linc-USP16 in HCC patient tissues and cell lines via q-RT-PCR and established overexpressed or knockdown HCC cell lines. Results: Here, we found that Linc-USP16 expression was significantly down-regulated in HCC patient tissues and cell lines. Further functional experiments suggested that Linc-USP16 could directly increase PTEN expression by acting as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) for miR-21 and miR-590-5p. These interactions led to repression of AKT pathway and inhibition of HCC cell proliferation and migration. Conclusion: Thus, our data showed that Linc-USP16, as a tumour suppressor, plays an important role in HCC pathogenesis and provides a new therapeutic strategy for HCC treatment.


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