科研之友
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摘要
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) (small, non-coding RNAs approximate to 22 nucleotides [nt] in length), have been estimated to regulate in the region of 30% of human gene expression at the post-transcriptional and translational levels. They are also involved in a series of important cellular processes, such as autophagy. Autophagy is well-known to be an evolutionarily conserved lysosomal degradation process in which a cell degrades long-lived proteins and damaged organelles. Recent evidence has shown that miRNAs can function as either oncogenes or tumour-suppressive genes in human cancers. Also, they are well-characterized to be crucial in tumourigenesis, as either oncogenes or tumour suppressors, by regulating autophagy. However, discovering the intricate mechanism of miRNA-modulated autophagy remains in its infancy. Thus, in this review, we focus on summarizing the dual function of oncogenic or tumour-suppressive miRNAs in regulation of autophagy and their roles in carcinogenesis, thereby revealing the regulatory mechanism of miRNA-modulated autophagy in cancer, to shed light on more novel RNA therapeutic strategies in the future.
