Progress in circular rnas as cancer biomarkers / 肿瘤

ABSTRACT

Circular RNA (circRNA) is a novel type of endogenous non-coding RNA (ncRNA), which mainly derives from exons or introns, and is generated by back splicing or lariat introns. Different from linear RNAs, circRNAs are stable and abundant in expression, and also show tissue- or developmental stage-specific expression. More and more evidence has indicated that circRNAs may be abnormal in expression in many diseases, especially in tumor cells, which plays a role through regulating the expressions of key genes. A large number of circRNAs are present in saliva, exosomes and the blood, and they may become biomarkers for diagnosis and prognostic evaluation of cancer.