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Non-coding RNAs and RNA modifiers in cancer progression and cancer cells resistance to therapies

There is increasing evidence that non-coding RNAs play a major role in epigenetic regulation. This article collection focuses on understanding the mechanisms of non-coding RNA, describing insights into the biogenesis and activity of non-coding RNAs, their interaction with chromatin, and novel methods for analysis and manipulation of RNA-mediated regulation.

  1. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) show considerable promise as therapeutic agents to improve tumor treatment, as they have been revealed as crucial modulators in tumor progression. However, our understanding of their roles i...

    Authors: Shan Xing, Zhi Tian, Wenying Zheng, Wenjuan Yang, Nan Du, Yixue Gu, Jiang Yin, Hao Liu, Xiaoting Jia, Donglan Huang, Wanli Liu and Min Deng
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2021 20:9
    Content type: Research Published on:

  2. Natural killer (NK) cells play a critical role in the innate antitumor immune response. Recently, NK cell dysfunction has been verified in various malignant tumors, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Ho...

    Authors: Peng-Fei Zhang, Chao Gao, Xiao-Yong Huang, Jia-Cheng Lu, Xiao-Jun Guo, Guo-Ming Shi, Jia-Bin Cai and Ai-Wu Ke
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:110
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. Circular RNAs (circRNAs), a novel type of noncoding RNA (ncRNA), are covalently linked circular configurations that form via a loop structure. Accumulating evidence indicates that circRNAs are potential biomar...

    Authors: Jianfa Li, Chenchen Huang, Yifan Zou, Jing Ye, Jing Yu and Yaoting Gui
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:103
    Content type: Research Published on:

  4. Extracellular vesicles (EVs), a class of heterogeneous membrane vesicles, are generally divided into exosomes and microvesicles on basis of their origination from the endosomal membrane or the plasma membrane,...

    Authors: Wei Hu, Cong Liu, Zhuo-Yue Bi, Qun Zhou, Han Zhang, Lin-Lin Li, Jian Zhang, Wei Zhu, Yang-Yi-Yan Song, Feng Zhang, Hui-Min Yang, Yong-Yi Bi, Qi-Qiang He, Gong-Jun Tan, Cheng-Cao Sun and De-Jia Li
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:102
    Content type: Review Published on:

  5. Increasing evidence supports the role of small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) as master gene regulators at the epigenetic modification level. However, the underlying mechanism of t...

    Authors: Huizhe Wu, Wenyan Qin, Senxu Lu, Xiufang Wang, Jing Zhang, Tong Sun, Xiaoyun Hu, Yalun Li, Qiuchen Chen, Yuanhe Wang, Haishan Zhao, Haiyan Piao, Rui Zhang and Minjie Wei
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:95
    Content type: Research Published on:

  6. Amplification of chromosome 7q21-7q31 is associated with tumor recurrence and multidrug resistance, and several genes in this region are powerful drivers of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We aimed to investig...

    Authors: Xiao-Yong Huang, Peng-Fei Zhang, Chuan-Yuan Wei, Rui Peng, Jia-Cheng Lu, Chao Gao, Jia-Bing Cai, Xuan Yang, Jia Fan, Ai-Wu Ke, Jian Zhou and Guo-Ming Shi
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:92
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Molecular Cancer 2024 23:44

  7. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is the most abundant reversible methylation modification of eukaryotic mRNA, and it plays vital roles in tumourigenesis. This study aimed to explore the role of the m6A demethylase ALK...

    Authors: Xingya Guo, Kai Li, Weiliang Jiang, Yangyang Hu, Wenqin Xiao, Yinshi Huang, Yun Feng, Qin Pan and Rong Wan
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:91
    Content type: Research Published on:

  8. Estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancers represent approximately two-thirds of all breast cancers and have a sustained risk of late disease recurrence. Cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) inhibitor...

    Authors: Xi Jin, Li-Ping Ge, Da-Qiang Li, Zhi-Ming Shao, Gen-Hong Di, Xiao-En Xu and Yi-Zhou Jiang
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:87
    Content type: Research Published on:

  9. As a novel type of noncoding RNAs, covalently closed circular RNAs (circRNAs) are ubiquitously expressed in eukaryotes. Emerging studies have related dysregulation of circRNAs to tumorigenesis. However, the bi...

    Authors: Zai Luo, Zeyin Rong, Jianming Zhang, Zhonglin Zhu, Zhilong Yu, Tengfei Li, Zhongmao Fu, Zhengjun Qiu and Chen Huang
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:86
    Content type: Research Published on:

  10. Increasing studies have shown that circRNA is closely related to the carcinogenesis and development of many cancers. However, biological functions and the underlying molecular mechanism of circRNAs in triple-n...

    Authors: Xiaying Zheng, Mengge Huang, Lei Xing, Rui Yang, Xiaosong Wang, Rong Jiang, Luyu Zhang and Junxia Chen
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:73
    Content type: Research Published on:

  11. Epigenetic alterations are involved in various aspects of colorectal carcinogenesis. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modifications of RNAs are emerging as a new layer of epigenetic regulation. As the most abundant chemi...

    Authors: Chaoqin Shen, Baoqin Xuan, Tingting Yan, Yanru Ma, Pingping Xu, Xianglong Tian, Xinyu Zhang, Yingying Cao, Dan Ma, Xiaoqiang Zhu, Youwei Zhang, Jing-Yuan Fang, Haoyan Chen and Jie Hong
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:72
    Content type: Research Published on:

  12. Colon cancer (CC) is a common malignant cancer. Recently, circFNDC3B was found to exert biological function in multiple cancers. However, it was unclear whether the potential protein encoded by circFNDC3B is i...

    Authors: Zihao Pan, Jianye Cai, Jiatong Lin, Huinian Zhou, Jingwen Peng, Jinliang Liang, Long Xia, Qi Yin, Baojia Zou, Jun Zheng, Liang Qiao and Lei Zhang
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:71
    Content type: Research Published on:

  13. Non coding RNAs (ncRNAs) have emerged as regulators of human carcinogenesis by affecting the expression of key tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes. They are divided into short and long ncRNAs, according to th...

    Authors: Martina Ghetti, Ivan Vannini, Clelia Tiziana Storlazzi, Giovanni Martinelli and Giorgia Simonetti
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:69
    Content type: Review Published on:

  14. Tumor repopulation is a major cause of radiotherapy failure. Previous investigations highlighted that dying tumor cells played vital roles in tumor repopulation through promoting proliferation of the residual ...

    Authors: Ming-jie Jiang, Yi-yun Chen, Juan-juan Dai, Dian-na Gu, Zhu Mei, Fu-rao Liu, Qian Huang and Ling Tian
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:68
    Content type: Research Published on:

  15. Empowered by recent advances of sequencing techniques, transcriptome-wide studies have characterized over 150 different types of post-transcriptional chemical modifications of RNA, ranging from methylations of...

    Authors: Xiao Yang, Ming Liu, Mengmeng Li, Sen Zhang, Hong Hiju, Jing Sun, Zhihai Mao, Minhua Zheng and Bo Feng
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:64
    Content type: Review Published on:

  16. As the most frequently diagnosed non-skin cancer in men and a leading cause of cancer-related death, understanding the molecular mechanisms that drive treatment resistance in prostate cancer poses a significan...

    Authors: Maureen Labbé, Christianne Hoey, Jessica Ray, Vincent Potiron, Stéphane Supiot, Stanley K. Liu and Delphine Fradin
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:63
    Content type: Review Published on:

  17. Gastric cancer is the fourth most common malignancy and the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Advanced gastric cancer patients can notably benefit from chemotherapy including adriamycin, ...

    Authors: Ling Wei, Jujie Sun, Nasha Zhang, Yan Zheng, Xingwu Wang, Liyan Lv, Jiandong Liu, Yeyang Xu, Yue Shen and Ming Yang
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:62
    Content type: Review Published on:

  18. Metastasis causes the vast majority of colorectal carcinoma (CRC)-related deaths. However, little is known about the specific traits and underlying mechanisms of metastasis-initiating cells in primary CRC. And...

    Authors: Kai Han, Feng-Wei Wang, Chen-Hui Cao, Han Ling, Jie-Wei Chen, Ri-Xin Chen, Zi-Hao Feng, Jie Luo, Xiao-Han Jin, Jin-Ling Duan, Shu-Man Li, Ning-Fang Ma, Jing-Ping Yun, Xin-Yuan Guan, Zhi-Zhong Pan, Ping Lan…
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:60
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Molecular Cancer 2021 20:60

  19. Circular RNAs (circRNAs), one type of non-coding RNA, were initially misinterpreted as nonfunctional products of pre-mRNA mis-splicing. Currently, circRNAs have been proven to manipulate the functions of diver...

    Authors: Chaochu Cui, Jianbo Yang, Xiao Li, Dongling Liu, Liwu Fu and Xianwei Wang
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:58
    Content type: Review Published on:

  20. Early-stage detection of leukemia is a critical determinant for successful treatment of the disease and can increase the survival rate of leukemia patients. The factors limiting the current screening approache...

    Authors: Ajaz A. Bhat, Salma N. Younes, Syed Shadab Raza, Lubna Zarif, Sabah Nisar, Ikhlak Ahmed, Rashid Mir, Sachin Kumar, Surender K. Sharawat, Sheema Hashem, Imadeldin Elfaki, Michal Kulinski, Shilpa Kuttikrishnan, Kirti S. Prabhu, Abdul Q. Khan, Santosh K. Yadav…
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:57
    Content type: Review Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Molecular Cancer 2020 19:174

  21. Aberrant expression of circular RNAs contributes to the initiation and progression of cancers, but the underlying mechanism remains elusive.

    Authors: Mengmeng Jie, Yaran Wu, Mengyuan Gao, Xinzhe Li, Cheng Liu, Qin Ouyang, Qingyun Tang, Changyu Shan, Yangfan Lv, Kebin Zhang, Qian Dai, Yang Chen, Shuo Zeng, Chenglin Li, Liting Wang, Fengtian He…
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:56
    Content type: Research Published on:

  22. Chemoresistance, whether intrinsic or acquired, is a major obstacle in the treatment of cancer. The resistance of cancer cells to chemotherapeutic drugs can result from various mechanisms. Over the last decade...

    Authors: Kaisheng Liu, Lin Gao, Xiaoshi Ma, Juan-Juan Huang, Juan Chen, Leli Zeng, Charles R. Ashby Jr., Chang Zou and Zhe-Sheng Chen
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:54
    Content type: Review Published on:

  23. The epigenetic regulation of immune response has been demonstrated in recent studies. Nonetheless, potential roles of RNA N6-methyladenosine (m6A) modification in tumor microenvironment (TME) cell infiltration re...

    Authors: Bo Zhang, Qiong Wu, Ben Li, Defeng Wang, Lei Wang and You Lang Zhou
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:53
    Content type: Research Published on:

  24. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as critical regulatory elements and play fundamental roles in the biology of various cancers. However, we are still lack of knowledge about their expression patterns ...

    Authors: Juan Xu, Tingting Shao, Mingxu Song, Yunjin Xie, Jialiang Zhou, Jiaqi Yin, Na Ding, Haozhe Zou, Yongsheng Li and Jiwei Zhang
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:51
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in Molecular Cancer 2023 22:116

  25. As the standard treatments for cancer, chemotherapy and radiotherapy have been widely applied to clinical practice worldwide. However, the resistance to cancer therapies is a major challenge in clinics and sci...

    Authors: Xinyi Zhang, Kai Xie, Honghua Zhou, Yuwei Wu, Chan Li, Yating Liu, Zhaoya Liu, Qian Xu, Shuang Liu, Desheng Xiao and Yongguang Tao
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:47
    Content type: Review Published on:

  26. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) is the most prevalent RNA epigenetic regulation in eukaryotic cells. However, understanding of m6A in colorectal cancer (CRC) is very limited. We designed this study to investigate the...

    Authors: Xiao Yang, Sen Zhang, Changyu He, Pei Xue, Luyang Zhang, Zirui He, Lu Zang, Bo Feng, Jing Sun and Minhua Zheng
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:46
    Content type: Research Published on:

  27. Circular RNA (circRNA) has been proven to play a significant role in multiple types of cancer. However, the expression and role of circRNAs in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) remains elusive.

    Authors: Xiaoling Gan, Hongtao Zhu, Xingwei Jiang, Samuel C. Obiegbusi, Min Yong, Xingtao Long and Jianguo Hu
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:45
    Content type: Research Published on:

  28. Ferroptosis is a novel mode of non-apoptotic cell death induced by build-up of toxic lipid peroxides (lipid-ROS) in an iron dependent manner. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) support tumor progression and ...

    Authors: Haiyang Zhang, Ting Deng, Rui Liu, Tao Ning, Haiou Yang, Dongying Liu, Qiumo Zhang, Dan Lin, Shaohua Ge, Ming Bai, Xinyi Wang, Le Zhang, Hongli Li, Yuchong Yang, Zhi Ji, Hailong Wang…
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:43
    Content type: Research Published on:

  29. Despite their small numbers, cancer stem cells play a central role in driving cancer cell growth, chemotherapeutic resistance, and distal metastasis. Previous studies mainly focused on how DNA or histone modif...

    Authors: Weicheng Liang, Zexiao Lin, Cong Du, Dongbo Qiu and Qi Zhang
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:38
    Content type: Review Published on:

  30. Literature reports that mature microRNA (miRNA) can be methylated at adenosine, guanosine and cytosine. However, the molecular mechanisms involved in cytosine methylation of miRNAs have not yet been fully eluc...

    Authors: Mathilde Cheray, Amandine Etcheverry, Camille Jacques, Romain Pacaud, Gwenola Bougras-Cartron, Marc Aubry, Florent Denoual, Pierre Peterlongo, Arulraj Nadaradjane, Joséphine Briand, Farida Akcha, Dominique Heymann, François M. Vallette, Jean Mosser, Benjamin Ory and Pierre-François Cartron
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:36
    Content type: Research Published on:

  31. CircRNAs are a class of single-stranded RNA molecules with a covalently closed loop structure and have been characterized by high stability, abundance, conservation, and display tissue/developmental stage-spec...

    Authors: Jikui Sun, Banban Li, Chang Shu, Quanfeng Ma and Jinhuan Wang
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:34
    Content type: Review Published on:

  32. Circular RNAs (circRNAs), a new type of noncoding RNA (ncRNA), have been identified as significant gene expression regulators and are involved in cancer progression. However, the roles of circRNAs in nasophary...

    Authors: Xiaohong Hong, Na Liu, Yelin Liang, Qingmei He, Xiaojing Yang, Yuan Lei, Panpan Zhang, Yin Zhao, Shiwei He, Yaqin Wang, Junyan Li, Qian Li, Jun Ma and Yingqin Li
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:33
    Content type: Research Published on:

  33. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a new class of non-coding RNAs formed by covalently closed loops through backsplicing. Recent methodologies have enabled in-depth characterization of circRNAs for identification an...

    Authors: Ming Lei, Guantao Zheng, Qianqian Ning, Junnian Zheng and Dong Dong
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:30
    Content type: Review Published on:

  34. Brain metastasis (BM) predominantly occurs in triple-negative (TN) and epidermal growth factor 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer (BC) patients, and currently, there is an unmet need for the treatment of these pa...

    Authors: Ranjana K. Kanchan, Jawed A. Siddiqui, Sidharth Mahapatra, Surinder K. Batra and Mohd W. Nasser
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:29
    Content type: Review Published on:

  35. Hypoxic tumors are refractory to DNA damage drugs. However, the underlying mechanism has yet to be elucidated. We aimed to identify lncRNAs that upregulated under hypoxia and their effects on colorectal cancer...

    Authors: Lin Huan, Tianan Guo, Yangjun Wu, Linguo Xu, Shenglin Huang, Ye Xu, Linhui Liang and Xianghuo He
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:11
    Content type: Research Published on:

  36. Interferon alpha (IFNα) is a well-established regulator of immunosuppression in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), while the role of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in immunosuppression remains large...

    Authors: Hailong Ma, Hanyue Chang, Wenyi Yang, Yusheng Lu, Jingzhou Hu and Shufang Jin
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2020 19:4
    Content type: Research Published on:

  37. Colon cancer (CC) cells can exhibit stemness and expansion capabilities, which contribute to resistance to conventional chemotherapies. Aberrant expression of CBX8 has been identified in many types of cancer, ...

    Authors: Yi Zhang, Min Kang, Bin Zhang, Fanchao Meng, Jun Song, Hiroshi Kaneko, Fumio Shimamoto and Bo Tang
    Citation: Molecular Cancer 2019 18:185
    Content type: Research Published on: