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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Oct 21, 2015; 21(39): 10956-10981
Published online Oct 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i39.10956
Dysregulation of non-coding RNAs in gastric cancer
Qing Yang, Ren-Wen Zhang, Peng-Cheng Sui, Hai-Tao He, Lei Ding
Qing Yang, Ren-Wen Zhang, Peng-Cheng Sui, Hai-Tao He, Lei Ding, Department of Pathogenobiology, College of Basic Medical Sciences, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, Jilin Province, China
Author contributions: Yang Q designed and critically revised the paper; Zhang RW, Sui PC, He HT and Ding L wrote the paper.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 31571443 (to QY); Jilin Provincial Science and Technology Department, No. 20140414031GH and No. 20150101121JC (to QY); Health and Family Planning Commission of Jilin Province, No. 2014Z068 (to QY); and Graduate Innovation Fund of Jilin University, No. 2014031 (to RWZ).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interest to report.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Qing Yang, PhD, Professor, Department of Pathogenobiology, College of Basic Medical Sciences, Jilin University, 126 Xinmin Street, Changchun 130012, Jilin Province, China. yangq@jlu.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-431-85619439 Fax: +86-431-85619105
Received: June 28, 2015
Peer-review started: July 2, 2015
First decision: July 20, 2015
Revised: August 28, 2015
Accepted: September 14, 2015
Article in press: September 14, 2015
Published online: October 21, 2015
Processing time: 112 Days and 13.5 Hours
Abstract

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common cancers in the world and a significant threat to the health of patients, especially those from China and Japan. The prognosis for patients with late stage GC receiving the standard of care treatment, including surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, remains poor. Developing novel treatment strategies, identifying new molecules for targeted therapy, and devising screening techniques to detect this cancer in its early stages are needed for GC patients. The discovery of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), primarily microRNAs (miRNAs) and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), helped to elucidate the mechanisms of tumorigenesis, diagnosis and treatment of GC. Recently, significant research has been conducted on non-coding RNAs and how the regulatory dysfunction of these RNAs impacts the tumorigenesis of GC. In this study, we review papers published in the last five years concerning the dysregulation of non-coding RNAs, especially miRNAs and lncRNAs, in GC. We summarize instances of aberrant expression of the ncRNAs in GC and their effect on survival-related events, including cell cycle regulation, AKT signaling, apoptosis and drug resistance. Additionally, we evaluate how ncRNA dysregulation affects the metastatic process, including the epithelial-mesenchymal transition, stem cells, transcription factor activity, and oncogene and tumor suppressor expression. Lastly, we determine how ncRNAs affect angiogenesis in the microenvironment of GC. We further discuss the use of ncRNAs as potential biomarkers for use in clinical screening, early diagnosis and prognosis of GC. At present, no ideal ncRNAs have been identified as targets for the treatment of GC.

Keywords: Gastric cancer; Dysregulation; Non-coding RNA; Tumorigenesis; Biomarker

Core tip: Gastric cancer (GC) is a significant threat to the health of patients. Non-coding RNAs, primarily microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs, play important roles in gastric tumorigenesis. In this study, we review papers published in the last five years on the dysregulation of non-coding RNAs, especially microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs, in GC. We summarize how aberrant expression of the non-coding RNAs in GC affects cancer cell survival and metastasis, as well as angiogenesis within the tumor microenvironment. We additionally discuss the potential use of non-coding RNAs in the clinic as biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of GC.