Circular RNAs: Insights into Clinical and Therapeutic Approaches for Various Cancers

Abstract

Background: With the advent of cancer diagnostics and therapeutics, circular RNAs (circRNAs) are swiftly becoming one of the significant regulators of gene expression and cellular functions. A plethora of multiple molecular mechanisms has been observed to elicit their influence.

Objective: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a distinct category of endogenous noncoding RNAs designed as a result of exon back splicing events in precursor's mRNAs (pre-mRNAs) and are widely distributed in the transcriptome of eukaryotic cells.

Methods: Although the role of circRNAs is still in its infancy, they serve as microRNA sponges, protein scaffolds, and modulators of transcription and splicing and occasionally as templates for the production of peptides.

Results: It is well known that abnormal circRNA expression is prevalent in malignancies and has been linked to a number of pathophysiological aspects of cancer. This extensively anomalous expression assists in cellular proliferation and growth, sustaining cellular invasiveness and bypassing cellular senescence and death, thus advocating their promise to serve as both clinical biomarkers and therapeutic targets.

Conclusion: An overview of the recent status of circRNA will aid in the identification of new biomarkers, therapeutic targets, and their prospect in the diagnosis and therapy of disease. In this review article, we discuss the functional mechanisms of circRNAs, their biomarker potential in disease diagnosis and prognosis, therapeutic approaches, and the associated limitations.

Keywords: Biomarker; cancer; circRNAs; diagnosis; downregulation; expression; upregulation.