Oncogenic Functions and Clinical Significance of Circular RNAs in Colorectal Cancer

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is ranked as the second most commonly diagnosed disease in females and the third in males worldwide. Therefore, the finding of new more reliable biomarkers for early diagnosis, for prediction of metastasis, and resistance to conventional therapies is an important challenge in overcoming the disease. The current review presents circular RNAs (circRNAs) with their unique features as potential prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers in CRC. The review highlights the mechanism of action and the role of circRNAs with oncogenic functions in the CRC as well as the association between their expression and clinicopathological characteristics of CRC patients. The comprehension of the role of oncogenic circRNAs in CRC pathogenesis is growing rapidly and the next step is using them as suitable new drug targets in the personalized treatment of CRC patients.

Development of an efficient, effective, and economical technology for proteome analysis

“… 43 ATP-dependent RNA helicase DDX42 protein is predicted to be an RBP and has shown experimental evidence in colorectal cancer progression. 44 Ro 60-kDa autoantigen is a known RBP that functions in non-coding RNA quality control while trafficking between the nucleus and cytoplasm. 45 To simply visualize the proteins that are significantly associated with NFIX, we took the top 200 significant (up- and down-regulated) proteins quantified from the circRNA-linear RNA comparison to build a network based on in silico analysis or experimental evidence in the STRING database ( Figure 5 E).…”

Comprehensive characterization of ubiquitinome of human colorectal cancer and identification of potential survival-related ubiquitination

“…Predictive biomarkers are frequently used to identify high-risk patients and predict drug responses. Until now, several potential prognostic biomarkers have been discovered [27][28][29], but there were still no suitable molecular biomarkers applied in the clinic. The findings of our study suggested that FOCAD and its ubiquitination might be used to predict the outcomes of CRC patients.…”

New Circulating Circular RNAs with Diagnostic and Prognostic Potential in Advanced Colorectal Cancer

“…In recent years great hopes have been placed on lncRNAs and, especially, on circRNAs because of their association with clinicopathological characteristics of cancer patients and their stability in circulation. Similar to the other types of ncRNAs, circRNAs can act as oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes and are associated with cancer phenotypes [29,39].…”

“…Currently, circIPO11 is being examined in liver cancer [16], circFUT8-in liver and bladder cancer [16,17], circABCB10-in breast, lung and non-small cell lung cancer [18][19][20] and circSMARcA5-in cervical, prostate, hepatocellular, and non-small cell lung cancer, as well as in glioblastoma multiforme [21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. With the exception of circABCB10 none of the above has been previously evaluated in CRC [28,29]. In our study we measured their baseline expression in the circulation of patients with stage III and stage IV CRC before the start of their treatment and in comparison to healthy controls.…”