Abstract
Gliomas are the most common malignancies of the central nervous system. Because of tumor localization and the biological behavior of tumor cells, gliomas are characterized by very poor prognosis. Despite significant efforts that have gone into glioma research in recent years, the therapeutic efficacy of available treatment options is still limited, and only a few clinically usable diagnostic biomarkers are available. More and more studies suggest non-coding RNAs to be promising diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets in many cancers, including gliomas. One of the largest groups of these molecules is long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). LncRNAs show promising potential because of their unique tissue expression patterns and regulatory functions in cancer cells. Understanding the role of lncRNAs in gliomas may lead to discovery of the novel molecular mechanisms behind glioma biological features. It may also enable development of new solutions to overcome the greatest obstacles in therapy of glioma patients. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge about lncRNAs and their involvement in the molecular pathology of gliomas. A conclusion follows that these RNAs show great potential to serve as powerful diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive biomarkers as well as therapeutic targets.
Highlights
Gliomas are the most common malignancies of the central nervous system (CNS), accounting for almost 80% of all malignant neoplasia and about 30–40% of all primary tumors of the CNS [1]
The authors identified 102 long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) dysregulated between all glioma samples and normal tissues, 127 lncRNAs with differential expression in high-grade astrocytomas (HGAs), and 103 lncRNAs dysregulated between low-grade astrocytomas (LGAs) and normal tissues
Despite improvements in treatment for high-grade gliomas, prognosis remains poor and presents a serious clinical problem. Finding both new therapeutic targets and new biomarkers enabling stratification of patients according to tumor biology is crucial and can be achieved by employing state-of-the-art technologies such as high-throughput genomic and transcriptomic investigations and computational bioinformatics analyses
Summary
Gliomas are the most common malignancies of the central nervous system (CNS), accounting for almost 80% of all malignant neoplasia and about 30–40% of all primary tumors of the CNS [1]. GBM is the most frequent primary malignant intracranial brain tumor This heterogeneous, diffuse, and highly infiltrative disease is associated with unsatisfactory therapeutic outcomes and very poor prognosis [3,4,5]. Since the biggest obstacles of cancer therapy, such as tumor therapy resistance and early recurrence, have not yet been overcome, the search for novel biomarkers of aggressive diseases such as GBM has steadily continued in recent years. In this search, certain molecular groups have elicited heightened interest. This review focuses on the current knowledge of lncRNAs and their function as novel diagnostic, predictive, and prognostic biomarkers, and as the putative targets of future GBM treatment
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