Abstract
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the main causes of tumor-related deaths worldwide. Due to the lack of obvious early symptoms and the lack of sensitive screening indicators in the early stage of HCC, the vast majority of patients are diagnosed with advanced or metastatic HCC, resulting in dissatisfactory treatment result. Therefore, it is urgent to determine effective and sensitive diagnostic and prognostic indicators and to determine new therapeutic targets. Circular RNA (circRNA) is a type of non-coding RNA that has been neglected for a long time. In recent years, it has been proved to play an important role in the development of many human diseases. Increasing evidence shows that change in circRNA expression has an extensive effect on the biological behavior of HCC. In this study, we comprehensively tracked the latest progress of circRNA in the pathogenesis of HCC, and reviewed its role as a biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis prediction in patients with HCC. In addition, we also summarized the potential of circRNA as therapeutic target in HCC and its relationship with HCC drug resistance, providing clues for the clinical development of circRNA-based therapeutic strategies.
Highlights
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fourth leading cause of tumor-related deaths worldwide, causing approximately 78,200 deaths per year
Majority of scientists consider that the biogenesis of Circular RNA (circRNA) differs from the linear mRNA: linear mRNA is produced by processing exons of pre-mRNA by canonical splice, while circRNA is formed by back-splicing and is regulated by cis-acting and trans-acting elements
Expressed circRNA is involved in tumor development by functioning as miRNA sponges, interacting with RNAbinding protein (RBP), translating proteins, competing with linear mRNA splicing of pre-mRNA and regulating parental genes
Summary
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fourth leading cause of tumor-related deaths worldwide, causing approximately 78,200 deaths per year. CircRNA and HCC diagnostic markers, leading to the great majority of patients are diagnosed with advanced or metastatic HCC. For these patients, the efficacy of local radiotherapy or chemotherapy is unsatisfactory, and there is little chance of curing by surgery. CircRNA is formed by covalent closure of the 5′ and 3′ ends of the precursor messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) through back splicing [8]. It contains a closed-loop structure that makes it resistant to digestion and cleavage of exonucleases, being highly stable in tissues and cells [9, 10]. The final goal of this review is to yielded more effective strategies for the diagnosis and prognosis prediction of HCC and to provide a basis for circRNA-based HCC molecular targeted therapy
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