Abstract
Multiple myeloma (MM) is an incurable disease caused by the malignant proliferation of bone marrow plasma cells, whose pathogenesis remains largely unknown. Although a large fraction of the genome is actively transcribed, most of the transcripts do not serve as templates for proteins and are referred to as non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), broadly divided into short and long transcripts on the basis of a 200-nucleotide threshold. Short ncRNAs, especially microRNAs, have crucial roles in virtually all types of cancer, including MM, and have gained importance in cancer diagnosis and prognosis, predicting the response to therapy and, notably, as innovative therapeutic targets. Long ncRNAs (lncRNAs) are a very heterogeneous group, involved in many physiological cellular and genomic processes as well as in carcinogenesis, cancer metastasis, and invasion. LncRNAs are aberrantly expressed in various types of cancers, including hematological malignancies, showing either oncogenic or tumor suppressive functions. However, the mechanisms of the related disease-causing events are not yet revealed in most cases. Besides emerging as key players in cancer initiation and progression, lncRNAs own many interesting features as biomarkers with diagnostic and prognostic importance and, possibly, for their utility in therapeutic terms as druggable molecules. This review focuses on the role of lncRNAs in the pathogenesis of MM and summarizes the recent literature.
Highlights
Multiple myeloma (MM) is a fatal malignant proliferation of antibody-secreting bone marrow (BM)plasma cells (PCs) that accounts for 10% of all hematological malignancies with an incidence in western countries of about 3–5 per 100,000
We provide a compendium of the long ncRNAs (lncRNAs) reported to be deregulated in MM and, putatively implicated in its pathogenesis and clinical outcome
The expression of MALAT1, a putative oncogenic lncRNA transcribed from chromosome 11q13 and overexpressed in several solid tumors [26,27], was firstly investigated by Cho et al [28] in BM mononuclear cells from MM patients with different disease status at diagnosis, showing its significant overexpression compared to normal controls
Summary
Multiple myeloma (MM) is a fatal malignant proliferation of antibody-secreting bone marrow (BM). During the last two decades of research, thanks to the impressive development and application of high-throughput sequencing techniques, it has been demonstrated that, a large fraction of the human genome is actively transcribed [9,10], non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), namely the RNA fraction not translated into canonical functional proteins, account for the majority of transcripts Increasing evidence suggests their huge impact on several molecular mechanisms: in particular, the roles of ncRNAs in supporting cellular homeostasis and gene expression regulation and in governing different pathologies are recently emerging. We provide a compendium of the lncRNAs reported to be deregulated in MM and, putatively implicated in its pathogenesis and clinical outcome
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