Circular RNAs and Hepatocellular Carcinoma: New Epigenetic Players With Diagnostic and Prognostic Roles

Kedeerya Aishanjiang; Xin-Dong Wei; Yi Fu; Xinjie Lin; Yujie Ma; Jiamei Le; Qiuqin Han; Xuan Wang; Xiaoni Kong; Jinyang Gu; Hailong Wu

doi:10.3389/fonc.2021.653717

Circular RNAs and Hepatocellular Carcinoma: New Epigenetic Players With Diagnostic and Prognostic Roles

Front Oncol. 2021 Apr 20:11:653717. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2021.653717. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Kedeerya Aishanjiang^{1

2}, Xin-Dong Wei³, Yi Fu¹, Xinjie Lin¹, Yujie Ma¹, Jiamei Le¹, Qiuqin Han¹, Xuan Wang³, Xiaoni Kong⁴, Jinyang Gu², Hailong Wu^{1

5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences Affiliated Zhoupu Hospital, Department of Collaborative Innovation Center for Biomedicine, Shanghai, China.
² Department of Transplantation, Xinhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
³ Department of General Surgery, The 81st Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
⁴ Institute of Clinical Immunology, Department of Liver Diseases, Central Laboratory, ShuGuang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai, China.
⁵ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Shanghai, China.
⁶ Collaborative Innovation Center for Biomedicine, Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death worldwide. Due to the lack of potent diagnosis and prognosis biomarkers and effective therapeutic targets, the overall prognosis of survival is poor in HCC patients. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of novel endogenous non-coding RNAs with covalently closed loop structures and implicated in diverse physiological processes and pathological diseases. Recent studies have demonstrated the involvement of circRNAs in HCC diagnosis, prognosis, development, and drug resistance, suggesting that circRNAs may be a class of novel targets for improving HCC diagnosis, prognosis, and treatments. In fact, some artificial circRNAs have been engineered and showed their therapeutic potential in treating HCV infection and gastric cancer. In this review, we introduce the potential of circRNAs as biomarkers for HCC diagnosis and prognosis, as therapeutic targets for HCC treatments and discuss the challenges in circRNA research and chances of circRNA application.

Keywords: biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis; circular RNAs; drug resistance; hepatocellular carcinoma; oncogenic circRNAs; tumor suppressive circRNAs.

Publication types

Review