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Long non-coding and circular RNAs in the landscape of cancer progression and metastasis

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Guest Editors: George A. Calin1Silvia Di Agostino2Sara Donzelli3

1- MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA
2- Magna Græcia University, Catanzaro, Italy
3- Regina Elena National Cancer Institute, Rome, Italy

Submission window: January 1st 2022 – December 31st 2022. Submit your research here.

In the last twenty years, thanks to the enormous development of technology and sequencing techniques, many advances have been made in the treatment of cancer, mainly aimed at precision therapies. However, many types of tumors are incurable when diagnosed late, are resistant to the usual therapies and are still lacking in precision therapies. Primary tumors that manage to be cured are often destined for future recurrence and metastasis. In light of these considerations, new biomarkers are still needed for diagnosis, tumor characterization and new targets for cancer treatments. Among the most promising biomarkers and potential targets against cancer, non-coding RNA (ncRNA) are the most likely to have rapid translational application. Their characteristics of high stability and secretion in human fluids make them robust biomarkers.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are undoubtedly the most studied of ncRNAs and indeed there are already active clinical trials of miRNAs as therapeutic targets. However, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and circular RNAs (circRNAs) are likewise promising; thus, are molecules to be investigated and validated as biomarkers.

Keywords: LncRNAs, CircRNAs, Biomarkers, Tumorigenesis, Metastasis, Invasion, Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), Drug resistance, Therapy, Therapeutic target, Liquid biopsy.

In this Special Issue of Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research, we would like to give space to studies that highlight lncRNAs and circRNAs as possible markers of prognosis, diagnosis, drug resistance and metastasis processes in solid and hematopoietic tumors, including studies that develop new molecular, statistical and computational tools for their identification, without forgetting their functional characterization in the various aspects of oncological activities.

Note: As a pre-acceptance check, the journal reserves the right to ask the authors to provide the editors with any raw data and ethics approval documents.


  1. Our previous study first showed that ATR-binding long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) is necessary for ATR function and promotes cancer resistance. However, the specific lncRNAs instrumental in ATR activation remain la...

    Authors: Yuanyuan Chen, Hui Shen, Tingting Liu, Kun Cao, Zhijie Wan, Zhipeng Du, Hang Wang, Yue Yu, Shengzhe Ma, Edward Lu, Wei Zhang, Jianming Cai, Fu Gao and Yanyong Yang
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2023 42:256
  2. Cancer is the main cause of death worldwide and metastasis is a major cause of poor prognosis and cancer-associated mortality. Metastatic conversion of cancer cells is a multiplex process, including EMT throug...

    Authors: Mohammad Ahmad, Louis-Bastien Weiswald, Laurent Poulain, Christophe Denoyelle and Matthieu Meryet-Figuiere
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2023 42:173
  3. The epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a trans-differentiation process that endows epithelial cells with mesenchymal properties, including motility and invasion capacity; therefore, its aberrant rea...

    Authors: Laura Amicone, Alessandra Marchetti and Carla Cicchini
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2023 42:147
  4. MET-driven acquired resistance is emerging with unanticipated frequency in patients relapsing upon molecular therapy treatments. However, the determination of MET amplification remains challenging using both stan...

    Authors: Francesca Bersani, Francesca Picca, Deborah Morena, Luisella Righi, Francesca Napoli, Mariangela Russo, Daniele Oddo, Giuseppe Rospo, Carola Negrino, Barbara Castella, Marco Volante, Angela Listì, Vanessa Zambelli, Federica Benso, Fabrizio Tabbò, Paolo Bironzo…
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2023 42:120
  5. Tumor treating fields (TTF) is the latest treatment for GBM. Circular RNA (circRNA) has been demonstrated to play critical roles in tumorigenesis. However, the molecular mechanism of TTF remained largely unkno...

    Authors: Shengchao Xu, Chengke Luo, Dikang Chen, Lu Tang, Quan Cheng, Ling Chen and Zhixiong Liu
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2023 42:64
  6. The response rate to immunotherapy in patients with bladder cancer (BCa) remains relatively low. Considering the stable existence and important functions in tumour metabolism, the role of circRNAs in regulatin...

    Authors: Jiancheng Lv, Kai Li, Hao Yu, Jie Han, Juntao Zhuang, Ruixi Yu, Yidong Cheng, Qiang Song, Kexin Bai, Qiang Cao, Haiwei Yang, Xiao Yang and Qiang Lu
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2023 42:41
  7. Escaping from ER stress-induced apoptosis plays an important role in the progression of many tumours. However, its molecular mechanism in osteosarcoma remains incompletely understood.

    Authors: Yuan Wang, Shuo Zheng, Jian Han, Na Li, Renchen Ji, Xiaodong Li, Chuanchun Han, Wenzhi Zhao and Lu Zhang
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:354
  8. To identify potential targets related to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) metabolism in gliomas, we used RNA immunoprecipitation to identify a novel long noncoding RNA renamed malate dehydrogenase degr...

    Authors: Dong He, Tao Xin, Bo Pang, Jun Sun, Zi Hao Liu, Zhen Qin, Xiao Shuai Ji, Fan Yang, Yan Bang Wei, Zi Xiao Wang, Jia Jia Gao, Qi Pang and Qian Liu
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:349
  9. Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is one of the most common digestive malignancies with relatively high morbidity and mortality. Emerging evidence suggests circular RNAs (circRNAs) play critical roles ...

    Authors: Chang Wang, Mingxia Zhou, Peiyu Zhu, Chenxi Ju, Jinxiu Sheng, Dan Du, Junhu Wan, Huiqing Yin, Yurong Xing, Hongle Li, Jing He and Fucheng He
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:347
  10. Altered glycolysis is the most fundamental metabolic change associated with the Warburg effect. Some glycolytic enzymes such as PKM2, the dominant pyruvate kinase in cancer cells, have been shown to engage in ...

    Authors: Yang Wu, Yichun Wang, Hanhui Yao, Heng Li, Fanzheng Meng, Qidong Li, Xiansheng Lin and Lianxin Liu
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:337
  11. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the world’s third leading cause of cancer-related death; due to the fast growth and high prevalence of tumor recurrence, the prognosis of HCC patients remains dismal. Long non...

    Authors: Yunshi Cai, Tao Lyu, Hui Li, Chang Liu, Kunlin Xie, Lin Xu, Wei Li, Hu Liu, Jiang Zhu, Yinghao Lyu, Xuping Feng, Tian Lan, Jiayin Yang and Hong Wu
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:335
  12. The biological function of lncRNA ELF3-AS1 remains largely unknown in cancers. The cause of SNAI2 overexpression in tumor metastasis remains largely unclear. The molecular mechanisms underlying the high co-exp...

    Authors: Dandan Li, Li Shen, Xudong Zhang, Zhen Chen, Pan Huang, Congcong Huang and Shanshan Qin
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:332
  13. Although success was achieved in the therapy for a minority of advanced lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) patients, anti-programmed death 1 (PD1) resistance was found in most LUAD patients. Here, we aimed to uncover ...

    Authors: Jian Gao, Yong-Qiang Ao, Ling-Xian Zhang, Jie Deng, Shuai Wang, Hai-Kun Wang, Jia-Hao Jiang and Jian-Yong Ding
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:295
  14. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a fundamental process for embryonic development during which epithelial cells acquire mesenchymal characteristics, and the underlying mechanisms confer malignant feat...

    Authors: Hashem Khanbabaei, Saeedeh Ebrahimi, Juan Luis García-Rodríguez, Zahra Ghasemi, Hossein Pourghadamyari, Milad Mohammadi and Lasse Sommer Kristensen
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:278
  15. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as critical regulators of gene expression and play fundamental roles in various types of cancer. Current developments in transcriptome analyses unveiled the existence...

    Authors: Jiwei Zhang, Tao Pan, Weiwei Zhou, Ya Zhang, Gang Xu, Qi Xu, Si Li, Yueying Gao, Zhengtao Wang, Juan Xu and Yongsheng Li
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:270
  16. Metastasis is the main cause of mortality in cervical cancer (CC). Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been demonstrated to play a crucial role in carcinoma biology. However, the expression and function of circRNAs ...

    Authors: Leilei Liang, Yunshu Zhu, Jian Li, Jia Zeng and Lingying Wu
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:261
  17. Distant metastasis is the major cause of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC)-associated mortality. However, molecular mechanisms involved in ccRCC metastasis remain to be fully understood. With the increas...

    Authors: Yanliang Wang, Yu Chen Feng, Yujin Gan, Liu Teng, Li Wang, Ting La, Peilin Wang, Yue Gu, Lei Yan, Na Li, Lina Zhang, Limeng Wang, Rick F. Thorne, Xu Dong Zhang, Huixia Cao and Feng-Min Shao
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:260
  18. The accumulating evidence confirms that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play a critical regulatory role in the progression of renal cell carcinoma (RCC). But, the application of lncRNAs in gene therapy remains ...

    Authors: Weipu Mao, Keyi Wang, Wentao Zhang, Shuqiu Chen, Jinbo Xie, Zongtai Zheng, Xue Li, Ning Zhang, Yuanyuan Zhang, Haimin Zhang, Bo Peng, Xudong Yao, Jianping Che, Junhua Zheng, Ming Chen and Wei Li
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:252
  19. Abnormal glycosylation in a variety of cancer types is involved in tumor progression and chemoresistance. Glycosyltransferase C1GALT1, the key enzyme in conversion of Tn antigen to T antigen, is involved in bo...

    Authors: Zengqi Tan, Yazhuo Jiang, Liang Liang, Jinpeng Wu, Lin Cao, Xiaoman Zhou, Zhihui Song, Zhenyu Ye, Ziyan Zhao, Hui Feng, Zewen Dong, Shuai Lin, Zhangjian Zhou, Yili Wang, Xiang Li and Feng Guan
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:228
  20. One of the most malignant tumors in men is prostate cancer that is still incurable due to its heterogenous and progressive natures. Genetic and epigenetic changes play significant roles in its development. The...

    Authors: Sepideh Mirzaei, Mahshid Deldar Abad Paskeh, Elena Okina, Mohammad Hossein Gholami, Kiavash Hushmandi, Mehrdad Hashemi, Azuma Kalu, Ali Zarrabi, Noushin Nabavi, Navid Rabiee, Esmaeel Sharifi, Hassan Karimi-Maleh, Milad Ashrafizadeh, Alan Prem Kumar and Yuzhuo Wang
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:214
  21. Acquisition of the chemoresistance to docetaxel (DTX), a microtubule-targeting agent, has been a huge obstacle in treatment for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Recently, strategies tar...

    Authors: Liang Chen, Yarong Song, Teng Hou, Xuexiang Li, Lulin Cheng, Yunxue Li and Yifei Xing
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:194
  22. Chemoresistance of pancreatic cancer is the main reason for the poor treatment effect of pancreatic cancer patients. Exploring chemotherapy resistance-related genes has been a difficult and hot topic of oncolo...

    Authors: Zhi-Wen Chen, Jian-Fei Hu, Zu-Wei Wang, Cheng-Yu Liao, Feng-Ping Kang, Cai-Feng Lin, Yi Huang, Long Huang, Yi-Feng Tian and Shi Chen
    Citation: Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research 2022 41:153