假基因对肿瘤生物学行为影响及机制的研究进展

Advances in pseudogene research on the tumor biological behavior and its underlying mechanisms

假基因是一类与编码基因高度相似但不能表达功能蛋白质的细胞内非编码基因,曾一度被认为是"化石基因"。随着人们对假基因调节功能的不断认识,假基因在恶性肿瘤发生发展中的作用逐渐得到了重视。本文从假基因对恶性肿瘤细胞生物学行为的影响方面对近年来的研究进行了回顾。一般认为,假基因可以通过其转录产物影响同源或非同源的编码基因表达,并通过多种机制调节肿瘤细胞生物学行为。假基因是否有其它影响肿瘤生物学行为的机制还有待研究。

Pseudogenes are a kind of non-functional genes bearing close resemblance to the known genes at differ-ent loci,and were once considered as＆quot;genomic fossils＆quot;. Nevertheless,the regulating function of pseudogenes has been uncovered,and the roles of pseudogenes in cancer are getting more attention. Here we focus on the effects of pseudo-genes on the tumor biological behavior. Generally,it is believed that pseudogene transcripts can regulate the expression of functional genes,and affect the biological behavior of tumor cells in multiple ways. The underlying mechanisms re-main to be further studied.