Abstract
Pseudogenes, abundant in the human genome, are traditionally considered as non-functional “junk genes.” However, recent studies have revealed that pseudogenes act as key regulators at DNA, RNA or protein level in diverse human disorders (including cancer), among which pseudogene-derived long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) transcripts are extensively investigated and has been reported to be frequently dysregulated in various types of human cancer. Growing evidence demonstrates that pseudogene-derived lncRNAs play important roles in cancer initiation and progression by serving as competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) through competitively binding to shared microRNAs (miRNAs), thus affecting both their cognate genes and unrelated genes. Herein, we retrospect those current findings about expression, functions and potential ceRNA mechanisms of pseudogene-derived lncRNAs in human cancer, which may provide us with some crucial clues in developing potential targets for cancer therapy in the future.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Epigenomics and Epigenetics, a section of the journal Frontiers in Cell and Developmental BiologyReceived: 06 November 2019 Accepted: 30 January 2020Published: 28 February 2020Citation: Lou W, Ding B and Fu P (2020) Pseudogene-Derived long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) and Their miRNA Sponging Mechanism in Human Cancer.Front
We summarized the upregulated oncogenic pseudogene-derived lncRNAs and downregulated tumor suppressive pseudogene-derived lncRNAs in diverse types of human cancer (Figure 1)
During the past few years, researchers have reported that a variety of pseudogenes possess transcribed activities, and some of pseudogene-derived RNA transcripts are validated to play as key regulators in diverse biological processes (Wen et al, 2012)
Summary
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Epigenomics and Epigenetics, a section of the journal Frontiers in Cell and Developmental. In this work, we highlight recent findings regarding the expression, function and miRNA sponging mechanism of pseudogene-derived lncRNAs in diverse types of human cancer. To better understand the miRNA sponge mechanism of pseudogene-derived lncRNAs in cancer, competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) mechanism proposed by Salmena et al (2011) should be introduced. In this hypothesis, messenger RNA, lncRNA and circRNA can “talk” to each other by binding to shared miRNAs using miRNA response elements (MREs). Dysregulation of lncRNAs, pseudogenes and circRNAs leads to alteration of abundance of miRNAs, affecting their inhibition of downstream target expression We summarized the upregulated oncogenic pseudogene-derived lncRNAs and downregulated tumor suppressive pseudogene-derived lncRNAs in diverse types of human cancer (Figure 1)
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