OncomiR or Tumor Suppressor? The Duplicity of MicroRNAs in Cancer
By Alexander A. Svoronos, Donald M. Engelman, Frank J. Slack. Cancer Research, 2016
705 citations recorded by the source corpus.
MicroRNAs are short, noncoding RNAs whose dysregulation has been implicated in most, if not all, cancers. They regulate gene expression by suppressing mRNA translation and reducing mRNA stability. To this end, there is a great deal of interest in modifying miRNA expression levels for the treatment of cancer. However, the literature is fraught with inconsistent accounts as to whether various miRNAs are oncogenic or tumor suppressive. In this review, we directly examine these inconsistencies and propose several mechanisms to explain them. These mechanisms include the possibility that specific miRNAs can simultaneously produce competing oncogenic and tumor suppressive effects by suppressing both tumor suppressive mRNAs and oncogenic mRNAs, respectively. In addition, miRNAs can modulate tumor-modifying extrinsic factors, such as cancer-immune system interactions, stromal cell interactions, oncoviruses, and sensitivity to therapy. Ultimately, it is the balance between these processes which determines whether a specific miRNA produces a net oncogenic or net tumor suppressive effect. A solid understanding of this phenomenon will likely prove valuable in evaluating miRNA targets for cancer therapy.
Subfields: Cancer Research, Molecular Biology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/abea2c23bb52f1be30d7a655cd1374b8ffdd05ca
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In Cancer Research
In Molecular Biology
Citations in the corpus
- Noncoding RNA:RNA Regulatory Networks in Cancer (2018, background): “expression of miRNAs, which could exhibit either tumor suppressive or oncogenic effects in a context-dependent manner [13,14].”