miRNAs and long noncoding RNAs as biomarkers in human diseases

Abstract

Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) are transcripts that have no apparent protein-coding capacity; however, many ncRNAs have been found to play a major biological role in human physiology. Their deregulation is implicated in many human diseases, but their exact roles are only beginning to be elucidated. Nevertheless, ncRNAs are extensively studied as a novel source of biomarkers, and the fact that they can be detected in body fluids makes them extremely suitable for this purpose. The authors mainly focus on ncRNAs as biomarkers in cancer, but also touch on other human diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases, neurological disorders and infectious diseases. The authors discuss the established methods and provide a selection of emerging new techniques that can be used to detect and quantify ncRNAs. Finally, the authors discuss ncRNAs as a new strategy for therapeutic interventions.

Keywords::

• autoimmune diseases
• biomarkers
• cancer
• cardiovascular diseases
• infectious diseases
• miRNAs
• molecular diagnostics
• neurological diseases
• noncoding RNAs

Financial & competing interests disclosure

K Van Roosbroeck is supported by a fellowship of the Henri Benedictus Fund/Belgian American Education Foundation. J Pollet is supported by fellowships of the Fulbright Association and the Belgian American Education Foundation. GA Calin is an Alan M Gewirtz Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Scholar. He is also supported as a Fellow at The University of Texas MD Anderson Research Trust, as a University of Texas System Regents Research Scholar, and by the CLL Global Research Foundation. Work in GA Calin’s laboratory is supported in part by the NIH/NCI (CA135444), a Department of Defense Breast Cancer Idea Award, Developmental Research Awards in Breast Cancer, Ovarian Cancer, Brain Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Multiple Myeloma, Leukemia (P50 CA100632) and Head and Neck (P50 CA097007) SPOREs, a SINF MDACC_DKFZ grant in CLL, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the RGK Foundation and the Estate of CG Johnson Jr. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Notes

ncRNA: Noncoding RNA; NSCLC: Non-small-cell lung cancer; qRT-PCR: Quantitative reverse transcription PCR.