MicroRNA在肿瘤诊断、治疗中的应用

MieroRNA（miRNA）是真核生物中一类内源性、长约22个核苷酸的非编码小分子RNA,参与基因转录后水平调控。miRNA的突变或者异常表达,与大多数癌症的发生发展有关,且与某些抗肿瘤药物疗效密切相关。因此,miRNA在癌症的诊断、预后、治疗和指导肿瘤个体化用药方面具有一定的临床应用潜力,是肿瘤生物治疗领域的一个新亮点。本文即对miRNA在诊断和治疗肿瘤方面的应用现状作一综述。     

循环microRNA与肿瘤诊断

miRNA是一类小分子调控RNA,在肿瘤的发生与控制方面发挥着重要的作用.已经发现在肿瘤患者的循环核酸中存在源自肿瘤的miRNA分子,这一现象提示循环miRNA分子可能成为无创诊断癌症的一个有效的方法.本文综述了循环miRNA作为循环生物标志物在肿瘤诊断中的应用,以及该领域的最新研究进展.     

细胞外微RNA:一种新型的肺癌分子生物标志物

尽管癌症的早期诊断和治疗在不断发展和进步,但寻找一种敏感、准确和微创的分子生物标志物,用于肿瘤的诊断仍是一项艰巨任务。微RNA(miRNA)是一类长约21～24个核甘酸的内源性非编码小分子RNA。细胞外miRNA作为一种新型的分子生物标志物,在癌症诊断方面具有微创、高灵敏度和高特异性等许多潜在特征。近年来,细胞外miRNA研究成果颇丰。文章就细胞外miRNA的来源、功能、检测以及作为分子标志物在肺癌诊断中的作用和目前存在的一些问题进行了综述。     

血清microRNA——一种非侵入性的肿瘤标志物

microRNA(miRNA)是一类自然形成的非编码小RNA,不少miRNA分子已被证实与癌症的生成有关联。近期的研究发现人血清中稳定存在一定水平的miRNA,并且血清miRNA表达谱的变化与多种肿瘤的发生、发展具有明确的相关性,说明血清miRNA可以作为肿瘤临床诊断和预后评估的分子标志物。因此,特定的血清miRNA表达谱可以构成识别癌症与其他疾病的"指纹",为癌症及其他疾病的诊断提供一种新的非侵入性的检测方法,同时,该技术还可用于肿瘤分类、预后判断、手术疗效监测及疾病复发预测等领域,并可能带来未来临床医学上的变革。     

癌症相关microRNA与靶基因的生物信息学分析

MicroRNAs(miRNAs)是一类长度约为22nt的内源性非编码RNA,通过与靶基因转录本互补结合调控基因的表达。近年来,研究发现miRNA与癌症发生密切相关,miRNA可以直接充当癌基因或者抑癌基因而影响肿瘤的发生和生长。为更进一步揭示癌症相关miRNA的特征及靶基因的功能,文章通过数据库搜索及文献检索,在人类基因组中发现了475个癌症相关miRNA,系统地比较了癌症相关miRNA与非癌症miRNA以及基因内和基因间区癌症相关miRNA在保守性、SNP位点分布、癌谱及转录调控等特性。研究发现,癌症相关miRNA比非癌症miRNA保守性要强,发生SNP概率比较低,同时发现miRNA所涉及癌症数目与保守性成正相关。基因组定位分析发现,癌症相关miRNA比非癌症miRNA更倾向于成簇存在。进一步对宿主基因、癌症相关miRNA及作用的靶基因与癌症发生进行关联分析,发现一些非癌症miRNA的宿主基因倾向于被癌症miRNA作用。本研究结果为深入理解miRNA与癌症之间的关系,以及进一步为miRNA作为癌症诊断指示物提供理论依据。     

MicroRNA与肿瘤相关的信号转导通路

信号转导通路在细胞代谢、生长、增殖、应激、发育和凋亡等生命活动中具有极为重要的作用。干扰这些通路将可能影响细胞的正常发育, 甚至导致肿瘤。MicroRNA(miRNA)是近年来在真核生物中发现的、在转录后水平负调节基因表达的一类长度约22个核苷酸的非编码小RNA, 其靶基因数目众多, 生物学功能广泛。在多种肿瘤中发现了miRNA的异常表达, 提示后者与肿瘤发生有关, 可能机制为调控癌基因或肿瘤抑制基因的表达。此外亦发现miRNA的靶基因有许多作用于肿瘤相关的信号转导通路。miRNA在肿瘤发生过程中的重要调控功能预示其将成为人类癌症诊断和治疗方面的新星。     

miRNA在肿瘤分子诊断和治疗中的研究进展

微小RNA(miRNA)是一类真核生物内源性、长18~25个核苷酸的小分子单链RNA,能够通过与靶mRNA特异性的碱基互补配对引起靶mRNA的降解或者翻译抑制,miRNA调节的紊乱将对细胞产生重要的影响。在肿瘤中,抑癌性miRNA的缺失会增加其靶向致癌基因的表达,而致癌miRNA(被称为oncomirs)的升高能够降低其靶向肿瘤抑制基因的表达。这一认识使得应用靶向致癌性miRNA与恢复抑癌性miRNA的功能来治疗肿瘤成为可能。随着临床研究的不断深入,miRNA不断为肿瘤分子诊断和治疗提供新的思路和治疗手段。     

microRNA在乳腺癌细胞中的功能研究及其作为乳腺癌生物标志物的评估

乳腺癌是一种由于细胞增殖失控而引发的严重危及人类尤其是女性生命的疾病。目前,寻找稳定有效、非侵入性的生物标志物来准确诊断乳腺癌,以及寻求新的治疗乳腺癌的方法显得至关重要。microRNA(miRNA)是一种内源性非编码小RNA,参与细胞内的多种生理过程,部分miRNA可以促进或抑制肿瘤的发生,具有诊断和治疗癌症的潜在价值。本文梳理了在乳腺癌中发挥作用的一些miRNA,并简述了这些miRNA如何参与乳腺癌的发生及发展,评估了其作为乳腺癌生物标志物的可靠性。     

miRDOA:集数据存储与在线分析于一体的综合型microRNA数据库

miRNA(microRNA)是一类小的非编码RNA,普遍存在于动物、植物等多个物种中,研究表明在原生生物以及病毒中也有miRNA。miRNA在生物的成长、发育、细胞凋亡、神经紊乱、癌症等多个方面都起到至关重要的作用,miRNA还可作为Biomarker应用于癌症等疾病的诊断和治疗。miRDOA (miRNA Database and Online Analysis)数据库存储了二百多个物种的miRNA相关信息,提供了基本的浏览和搜索功能。用户可以通过物种来浏览miRNA相关数据,也可以通过miRNA、靶基因或者序列进行检索。除此之外,miRDOA还提供了在线分析模块,主要对高通量测序数据进行初步分析,在此基础上,添加了靶基因预测、表达谱数据差异分析,以及在线BLAST功能。miRDOA是一个完全免费的开源的数据库网站,并实时更新。     

miR-451与人类肿瘤关系的研究进展

Micro RNAs(miRNA)是一类在转录后水平调控基因表达的小分子非编码RNAs,通过调节细胞的增殖、分化、凋亡使机体维一个动态平衡。近年来,大量研究表明许多miRNA可作为原癌基因或者抑癌基因参与肿瘤的发生、发展,进一步研究发现,通过检测和调控这些miRNA,可用于肿瘤的早期诊断和治疗。最近一系列研究发现miRNA-451(miR-451)在许多肿瘤中存在差异性表达,与这些肿瘤的发生、发展、治疗有着密切的联系。本文对人类肿瘤中miR-451表达、调控的相关研究做一综述,为miR-451在肿瘤的诊断、治疗及预后中的应用提供重要资料。     

Transgenically expressed viral RNA silencing suppressors interfere with microRNA methylation in Arabidopsis

HEN1-dependent methylation of the 3'-terminal nucleotide is a crucial step in plant microRNA (miRNA) biogenesis. Here we report that several viral RNA silencing suppressors (P1/HC-Pro, p21 and p19) inhibit miRNA methylation. These suppressors have distinct effects on different miRNAs. We also show that miRNA* is methylated in vivo in a suppressor-sensitive manner, suggesting that the viral proteins interfere with miRNA/miRNA* duplexes. p19 and p21 bind both methylated and unmethylated miRNA/miRNA* duplexes in vivo. These findings suggest miRNA/miRNA* as the in vivo substrates for the HEN1 miRNA methyltransferase and raise intriguing possibilities regarding the cellular location of miRNA methylation.     

Mathematical modeling of combinatorial regulation suggests that apparent positive regulation of targets by miRNA could be an artifact resulting from competition for mRNA

MicroRNAs bind to and regulate the abundance and activity of target messenger RNA through sequestration, enhanced degradation, and suppression of translation. Although miRNA have a predominantly negative effect on the target protein concentration, several reports have demonstrated a positive effect of miRNA, i.e., increase in target protein concentration on miRNA overexpression and decrease in target concentration on miRNA repression. miRNA–target pair-specific effects such as protection of mRNA degradation owing to miRNA binding can explain some of these effects. However, considering such pairs in isolation might be an oversimplification of the RNA biology, as it is known that one miRNA interacts with several targets, and conversely target mRNA are subject to regulation by several miRNAs. We formulate a mathematical model of this combinatorial regulation of targets by multiple miRNA. Through mathematical analysis and numerical simulations of this model, we show that miRNA that individually have a negative effect on their targets may exhibit an apparently positive net effect when the concentration of one miRNA is experimentally perturbed by repression/overexpression in such a multi-miRNA multitarget situation. We show that this apparent unexpected effect is due to competition and will not be observed when miRNA interact noncompetitively with the target mRNA. This result suggests that some of the observed unusual positive effects of miRNA may be due to the combinatorial complexity of the system rather than due to any inherently unusual positive effect of the miRNA on its target.     

Current approaches to micro-RNA analysis and target gene prediction

It is becoming increasingly evident that micro-RNAs (miRNA) play a significant role in regulating the cellular machinery. These ∼22-nt non-coding RNAs function as negative regulators of gene expression. Since their discovery, considerable information has been obtained on miRNA biology and the mechanism of their action. Guidelines have been established for miRNA nomenclature and databases have been built to house all miRNA from many species. A number of methodologies are available for miRNA analysis. There is a lot of interest in developing bioinformatics approaches to predict miRNA target genes. This article will bring together the information on our current knowledge of miRNA biology, the approaches for miRNA analysis, and computational strategies to gain insight in miRNA functional roles.     

睾丸发育和精子生成相关miRNA研究进展

MicroRNA(miRNA)是一类长约22nt的非编码小RNA, 广泛存在于各种生物中, 调节生物体生长、发育和凋亡等过程。研究表明, miRNA在人和动物睾丸发育及精子生成等过程也起着重要的调控作用。但miRNA在不同种属的睾丸组织及其不同发育时间段均存在特异性表达。此外, miRNA在动物精子生成过程中也存在时空特异性。文章综述了睾丸发育和精子生成过程中miRNA的差异性表达、表达调控以及一些miRNA对精子生成的调节作用, 旨在为睾丸miRNA的进一步研究提供参考, 为利用miRNA调控和促进种公畜精液品质提供研究思路。     

LidNA, a novel miRNA inhibitor constructed with unmodified DNA

Many miRNA inhibitors have been developed and they are chemically modified oligonucleotides such as 2′-O-methylated RNA and locked nucleic acid (LNA). Unmodified DNA was not yet reported as a miRNA inhibitor because of the low affinity of DNA/miRNA compared to mRNA/miRNA. We designed a structured unmodified DNA that significantly inhibits miRNA function. The clue structure for activity is the miRNA binding site between double stranded regions which is responsible for the miRNA inhibitory activity and tight binding to miRNA. We developed the miRNA inhibitor constructed with unmodified DNA, and named it LidNA, DNA that puts a lid on miRNA function.     

MicroRNA evolution provides new evidence for a close relationship of Diplura to Insecta

The phylogenetic interrelationships among four hexapod lineages (Protura, Collembola, Diplura and Insecta) are pivotal to understanding the origin of insects and the early diversification of Hexapoda, but they have been difficult to clarify based on the available data. In this study, we identified 91 conserved microRNA (miRNA) families from 36 panarthropod taxa, including seven newly sequenced non-insect hexapods. We found major clade differentiation accompanied by the origin of novel miRNA families, and most miRNA clusters are conserved with a high degree of microsynteny. Importantly, we were able to identify two miRNA families unique to Hexapoda, and four miRNA families and a miRNA cluster that exist exclusively in Diplura and Insecta, suggesting a close relationship between Diplura and Insecta as well as the monophyly of Hexapoda. Combined with a phylogenetic analysis based on the presence/absence matrix of miRNA families, our study demonstrates the effectiveness of miRNA in resolving deep phylogenetic problems.     

微小RNA分析技术研究进展

微小RNA（miRNA）是一类起重要调控作用的非编码小分子RNA。准确分析组织或细胞中miRNA的表达水平是研究其生物学功能的基础。近年,研究者开发出多种方法检测不同生理、病理过程中miRNA的差异表达,发现miRNA的异常表达与癌症等多种疾病密切相关。目前,miRNA已逐渐成为重要的疾病诊断生物标志物乃至治疗靶点。miRNA的分析技术贯穿miRNA的研究和药物研发过程,并起到关键作用。我们针对miRNA的不同研究阶段所采用的定性和定量分析方法,着重阐述了用于初始miRNA研究的克隆测序类技术、分析miRNA表达谱的高通量芯片技术、研究具体目标miRNA及其前体表达的qPCR和改良Northern印迹技术,以及将修饰后miRNA作为药物的药代动力学评价技术。