siRNA诱导的DNA甲基化与肿瘤的发生

Small RNA-directed DNA Methylation and Tumorigenesis

siRNA诱导的基因沉默最早只被认为是发生在细胞质内的转录后水平的调控过程,随着siRNA指导DNA甲基化现象的发现,已证实siRNA可以通过指导基因组表观修饰引起转录水平基因沉默.DNA甲基化曾被预言是致癌作用的一种表观遗传学机制,肿瘤发生过程中抑瘤基因异常沉默涉及到基因启动子区域DNA的甲基化.分析了这两个过程中内在的关系,探索siRNA对肿瘤细胞中基因异常表达的影响和作用.这将有助于肿瘤生物学和表观遗传学的研究,也会为研发防治肿瘤的新方法和新途径提供新的思路.

The most familiar action of mode performed by RNA regulation is the posttranscriptional gene silencing in the cytoplasm. The discovery of siRNA-directed DNA methylation in nucleus has proved that siRNA can induce transcriptional gene silencing by siRNA-guided genome modifications. DNA methylation was once predicted to be an epigenetic mechanism of tumor biogenesis. It is well known that the abnormal inhibition of tumor-suppressor genes is associated with DNA de novo methylation in the gene promoter region. Potential molecular mechanisms of tumour-suppressor gene silencing was analized, the principle of siRNA-directed transcriptional suppression was explored, and the possible relationship between them was clarified. The detailed study on the relationship between DNA methylation and RNA interference will be beneficial to better understand tumor biology and epigenetics, and also provide new therapeutic strategies for the prevention and treatment of cancer.