Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are thought to drive uncontrolled tumor growth, and the existence of CSCs has recently been proven by direct experimental evidence, including tracing cell lineages within a growing tumor. However, CSCs must be analyzed in additional cancer types. Cancer stem cell-like cells (CSCLCs) are a good alternative system for the study of CSCs, which hold great promise for clinical applications. OCT4, NANOG, and SOX2 are three basic transcription factors that are expressed in both CSCLCs and embryonic stem cells (ESCs). These transcription factors play critical roles in maintaining the pluripotence and self-renewal characteristics of CSCLCs and ESCs. In this review, we discuss the aberrant expression, isoforms, and pseudogenes of OCT4, NANOG, and SOX2 in the CSCLC niche, which contribute to the major differences between CSCLCs and ESCs. We also highlight an anticancer therapy that involves killing specific cancer cells directly by repressing the expression of OCT4, NANOG, or SOX2. Importantly, OCT4, NANOG, and SOX2 provide great promise for clinical applications because reducing their expression or blocking the pathways in which they function may inhibit tumor growth and turn-off the cancer “switch.” In the future, a clear understanding of transcription factor regulation will be essential for elucidating the roles of OCT4, NANOG, and SOX2 in tumorigenesis, as well as exploring their use for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.

Although the long noncoding RNA AFAP1-AS1 has been shown to be involved in various types of cancer, its involvement in lung cancer remains poorly understood. In the current study, we found that AFAP1-AS1 was substantially over expressed in lung cancer tissues and cell lines. In addition, AFAP1-AS1 expression level was proven to be associated with the malignant features of lung cancer. Knockdown of AFAP1-AS1 significantly suppressed cell proliferation by increasing cell apoptosis and G0/G1 phase retardation of cell cycle in lung cancer cells. Furthermore, AFAP1-AS1 knockdown could suppress tumor growth of lung cancer in BALB/c nude mice. We also identified that AFAP1-AS1 silencing could influence the expression of AFAP1 and KRT1 on mRNA and protein level by cis and trans regulatory mechanism. Moreover, the oncogenic activities of AFAP1-AS1 on cell proliferation are partially mediated by KRT1. In summary, these findings demonstrate that AFAP1-AS1 plays an essential role in promoting lung cancer development in vitro and vivo. It indicated that AFAP1-AS1 is a promising prognostic predictor for patients with lung cancer.

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The mammalian genomes are mostly comprised of noncoding genes. And mammalian genomes are characterized by pervasive expression of different types of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs). In sharp contrast to previous collections, these ncRNAs show strong purifying selection evolutionary conservation. Previous studies indicated that only a small fraction of the mammalian genome codes for messenger RNAs destined to be translated into peptides or proteins, and it is generally assumed that a large portion of transcribed sequences-including pseudogenes and several classes of ncRNAs-do not give rise to peptides or proteins. However, ribosome profiling suggests that ribosomes occupy many regions of the transcriptome thought to be noncoding. Moreover, these observations highlight a potentially large and complex set of biologically regulated translational events from transcripts formerly thought to lack coding potential. Furthermore, accumulating evidence from previous studies has suggested that the novel translation products exhibit temporal regulation similar to that of proteins known to be involved in many biological activity processes. In this review, we focus on the coding potential of noncoding genes and ncRNAs. We also sketched the possible mechanisms for their coding activities. Overall, our review provides new insights into the word of central dogma and is an expansive resource of functional annotations for biomedical research. At last, the outcome of the majority of the translation events and their potential biological purpose remain an intriguing topic for future investigation.