Gongjun Tan, Jinping Lu, Zhengke Peng and Faqing Tang
Accepted Abstracts: J Cancer Sci Ther
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a type of head and neck cancer with significantly high prevalence in Southern China. It has a highly invasive in late stages since its special location and lack of specific symptoms. NPC is hardly detected using regular medical examination at the beginning. MicroRNAs (miRs), small non-coding single-stranded RNAs with 19-24 nucleotides length, negatively regulate many target genes expression at the post-transcriptional and/or translational levels, and play a critical role in the initiation and progression of NPC. In this review, we have summarized the information of aberrantly expressed miRs in NPC, their mechanism of action and the relationship to cancer. We found that miRs regulate expression of various oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, thereby contributing to the modulation of diverse biological processes including proliferation, apoptosis, epithelial to mesenchymal transition and metastasis. Furthermore, the review also found the potential role of miRs as novel biomarkers and their translational applications for diagnosis and therapy in NPC.
Cancer Science & Therapy received 3968 citations as per Google Scholar report