Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4A1 in the pathogenesis and treatment of cancers

Jinghong Huang; Lei Zhang; Rui Yang; Lixia Yao; Jinming Gou; Dongdong Cao; Zeming Pan; Dongmei Li; Yuanming Pan; Wei Zhang

doi:10.3389/fmolb.2023.1289650

Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4A1 in the pathogenesis and treatment of cancers

Front Mol Biosci. 2023 Nov 9:10:1289650. doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2023.1289650. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Jinghong Huang^#¹, Lei Zhang², Rui Yang^#¹, Lixia Yao¹, Jinming Gou³, Dongdong Cao¹, Zeming Pan¹, Dongmei Li¹, Yuanming Pan⁴, Wei Zhang⁵

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Xinjiang Endemic and Ethnic Diseases, School of Medicine, Shihezi University, Shihezi, Xinjiang, China.
² Clinical Laboratory, First Affiliated Hospital of Shihezi University, Shihezi, Xinjiang, China.
³ Troops of the People's Liberation Army, Urumqi, Xinjiang, China.
⁴ Cancer Research Center, Beijing Chest Hospital, Beijing Tuberculosis and Thoracic Tumor Research Institute, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
⁵ Shihezi People's Hospital, Shihezi, Xinjiang, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Abnormal translate regulation is an important phenomenon in cancer initiation and progression. Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4A1 (eIF4A1) protein is an ATP-dependent Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) helicase, which is essential for translation and has bidirectional RNA unwinders function. In this review, we discuss the levels of expression, regulatory mechanisms and protein functions of eIF4A1 in different human tumors. eIF4A1 is often involved as a target of microRNAs or long non-coding RNAs during the epithelial-mesenchymal transition, associating with the proliferation and metastasis of tumor cells. eIF4A1 protein exhibits the promising biomarker for rapid diagnosis of pre-cancer lesions, histological phenotypes, clinical staging diagnosis and outcome prediction, which provides a novel strategy for precise medical care and target therapy for patients with tumors at the same time, relevant small molecule inhibitors have also been applied in clinical practice, providing reliable theoretical support and clinical basis for the development of this gene target.

Keywords: biomarkers; clinicopathologic features; eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4A1; human cancer; inhibitors.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant no. 82160573]; the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Guiding Science and Technology project [Grant no. 2022ZD084]; 2023 Corps Graduate Innovation Project -51.