Non-Coding RNAs in Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy: Focus on Lung Cancer.

Abstract

Simple SummaryResearchers have spent nearly two decades unraveling the roles of non-coding RNAs in cancer biology. In recent years, deep transcriptomic profiling of tissue and circulating non-coding RNAs in cancer patients have elucidated non-coding RNAs as potential biomarkers that can inform cancer diagnosis and prognosis. Clinical trials have also begun examining non-coding RNA-based drugs as adjuncts to traditional chemotherapeutics. Overall, our review is structured to provide an overview of non-coding RNAs in cancer biology, diagnostics, and therapeutics, focusing on lung cancer.Over the last several decades, clinical evaluation and treatment of lung cancers have largely improved with the classification of genetic drivers of the disease, such as EGFR, ALK, and ROS1. There are numerous regulatory factors that exert cellular control over key oncogenic pathways involved in lung cancers. In particular, non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) have a diversity of regulatory roles in lung cancers such that they have been shown to be involved in inducing proliferation, suppressing apoptotic pathways, increasing metastatic potential of cancer cells, and acquiring drug resistance. The dysregulation of various ncRNAs in human cancers has prompted preclinical studies examining the therapeutic potential of restoring and/or inhibiting these ncRNAs. Furthermore, ncRNAs demonstrate tissue-specific expression in addition to high stability within biological fluids. This makes them excellent candidates as cancer biomarkers. This review aims to discuss the relevance of ncRNAs in cancer pathology, diagnosis, and therapy, with a focus on lung cancer.