microRNA在肺癌诊断、治疗及预后判断中的作用

Roles of microRNA in diagnosis,therapy and prognosis of lung cancer

肺癌是全世界因肿瘤导致死亡的最主要原因。尽管肺癌发生的分子网络在蛋白和基因水平上已经部分得到阐明,但是其高死亡率仍没有明显改善。微小RNAs(miRNAs)是一大类小的内源性非编码RNAs,通过与靶mRNA3’端非翻译区部分互补配对,在翻译后水平调节靶基因的表达。miRNAs在肺脏的发育过程中发挥多种作用,其异常表达可能导致肺癌的发生。肺癌中miRNAs的异常表达模式,以及miRNAs在血清中的稳定存在,都使miRNAs有望成为新型的临床生物标记物用于肺癌的诊断和预后。miRNAs还可以直接作为原癌基因或抑癌基因在肺癌发生和发展过程中起重要作用,调节具有致癌或抑癌功能的miRNAs可能成为肺癌治疗的新方法。该文就miRNAs在肺癌诊断、预后和治疗中的作用进行综述。

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death from cancer worldwide.Although the molecular network of lung carcinogenesis has been partly known at the levels of genes and proteins,the high mortality is not markedly changed.microRNAs(miRNAs),a large class of short endogenous non-coding RNAs,act as post-transcriptional regulators for target gene expression by binding to partially complementary 3'untranslated regions of target mRNAs.miRNAs have multiple functions in lung development,and abnormal expression of miRNAs could lead to lung tumorigenesis.The different expression profiles of miRNAs in lung cancer,and the stability of miRNAs in serum,all together make them as new potentially clinical biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis of lung cancer.Moreover,miRNAs play important roles in oncogenesis and development of lung cancer acting directly as oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes,regulating the expression of carcinogenic and tumor suppressive miRNAs as a new method in the treatment of lung cancer.This review focuses on the function of miRNAs in the diagnosis,prognosis and therapy of lung cancer.