MicroRNA and brain tumors: A cause and a cure?
MicroRNA and brain tumors: A cause and a cure?
复制标题
DOI：
10.1089/dna.2006.0560
复制
发表时间：
2007-05-01
影响因子：
3.1
通讯作者：
Sloan, Andrew E.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Mathupala, Saroj P.;Mittal, Sandeep;Sloan, Andrew E.
恶性脑肿瘤，包括高级别神经胶质瘤，是所有癌症中最致命的。尽管取得了相当大的进步，包括手术、放疗和化疗等多模式治疗，但诊断出患有这些肿瘤的患者的总体预后仍然令人沮丧。随着通过小干扰RNA (siRNA)实现靶标特异性基因沉默的RNA干扰(RNAi)的发现，一种针对恶性神经胶质瘤的新方法已经出现，许多实验室正在积极开展这项工作。然而，组织或器官特异性靶向治疗量的 siRNA 的实际困难仍然阻碍了其在临床环境中的应用。 MicroRNA (miRNA) 是 siRNA 的内源表达形式，不仅提供了在给定患病组织或器官中诱导 RNAi 的替代方法，而且还提供了一组独特的诊断标记物，可用于识别并区分肿瘤级别。因此，miRNA可以被认为是细胞对siRNA的回应。十多年前发现的 miRNA 很快就被认为在调节癌症基因表达方面至关重要。这就是 miRNA 的治疗潜力，因为现在可以通过控制细胞的 miRNA 表达谱来诱导或抑制给定患病细胞群中的 RNAi。这篇综述概述了 miRNA 作为高级别神经胶质瘤治疗策略的潜力，以及在临床环境中使用这种有前景的技术之前需要解决的技术障碍。
Malignant brain tumors, including high-grade gliomas, are among the most lethal of all cancers. Despite considerable advances, including multi-modal treatments with surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, the overall prognosis remains dismal for patients diagnosed with these tumors. With the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi) for target-specific gene silencing via small interfering RNA (siRNA), a novel method to target malignant gliomas has been exposed, an endeavor that is aggressively being carried out in numerous laboratories. However, practical difficulties in tissue- or organ-specific targeting of therapeutic quantities of siRNA still preclude its applicability in a clinical setting. MicroRNA (miRNA), an endogenously expressed form of siRNA, not only presents an alternate method to induce RNAi in a given diseased tissue or organ, but also exposes a unique set of diagnostic markers that can be used to identify, and then differentiate between tumor grades. Thus, miRNA can be considered the cells' answer to siRNA. Discovered over a decade ago, miRNA is fast becoming recognized as crucial in regulating gene expression in cancers. Therein lies the therapeutic potential of miRNA, as it may now be possible to induce or inhibit RNAi in a given diseased cell population by controlling the cells' miRNA expression profile. This review outlines the potential of miRNA as a therapeutic strategy against high-grade gliomas, and also the technological hurdles that need to be addressed before this promising technique can be administered in a clinical setting.