PiRNAs and PIWI proteins: From biogenesis to their role in cancer

Abstract

Cancer has become one of the biggest problems, threatening the lives of many people every day. There are a variety of strategies for the prevention, prognosis, control, and treatment of this disease that surveying dysregulation of intracellular elements is one of them. PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are one of these intracellular factors that play an important role in controlling various diseases including cancer. piRNAs are small cellular RNAs that play a key role in cellular processes such as histone methylation and modification, silencing of transposons as well as silencing of post-transcriptional modification and stability of sexual cells. A sub clade of the Argonaute family proteins is PIWI proteins, which express normally in the germ line and attach to piRNAs. Compared to other non-coding RNAs, the role of piRNAs in cancer diseases is less known, therefore, this study reviewed the biogenesis, communications, the role of piRNAs and PIWI proteins in the cellular processes, and their association with different types of cancers. In this review, studies on piRNAs and their role in cancer from 2001 to 2020 were collected through Google Scholar and PubMed. 107 articles were used to obtain general information about piRNAs, their role and biogenesis. Another 49 articles were pooled and used to analyze the association between piRNAs and PIWI proteins with cancer. The results revealed that piRNAs and PIWI proteins can play an significant role in the prognosis, control and treatment of various types of cancer. Therefore, they can be used as diagnostic and therapeutic factors for different types of diseases.