The roles and mechanisms of coding and noncoding RNA variations in cancer.

Functional variations in coding and noncoding RNAs are crucial in tumorigenesis, with cancer-specific alterations often resulting from chemical modifications and posttranscriptional processes mediated by enzymes. These RNA variations have been linked to tumor cell proliferation, growth, metastasis, and drug resistance and are valuable for identifying diagnostic or prognostic cancer biomarkers. The diversity of posttranscriptional RNA modifications, such as splicing, polyadenylation, methylation, and editing, is particularly significant due to their prevalence and impact on cancer progression.

ADAR1-dependent miR-3144-3p editing simultaneously induces MSI2 expression and suppresses SLC38A4 expression in liver cancer.

Aberrant adenosine-to-inosine (A-to-I) RNA editing, catalyzed by adenosine deaminase acting on double-stranded RNA (ADAR), has been implicated in various cancers, but the mechanisms by which microRNA (miRNA) editing contributes to cancer development are largely unknown. Our multistage hepatocellular carcinogenesis transcriptome data analyses, together with publicly available data, indicated that ADAR1 was the most profoundly dysregulated gene among RNA-editing enzyme family members in liver cancer. Targeted inactivation of ADAR1 inhibited the in vitro tumorigenesis of liver cancer cells.

Serum Proteins, HMMR, NXPH4, PITX1 and THBS4; A Panel of Biomarkers for Early Diagnosis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

The high morbidity rate of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is mainly linked to late diagnosis. Early diagnosis of this leading cause of mortality is therefore extremely important. We designed a gene selection strategy to identify potential secretory proteins by predicting signal peptide cleavage sites in amino acid sequences derived from transcriptome data of human multistage HCC comprising chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and early and overt HCCs.