Recent Advances in the Potential Use of Circular RNA for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer

Abstract

There are few biomarkers available for the early diagnosis and prognostic evaluation of pancreatic cancer. In addition, the development of targeted therapy for pancreatic cancer is an unmet need due to the lack of molecular targets. With the continuous progress in circular RNA (circRNA)-related research, its role in the occurrence and development of pancreatic cancer has been discovered and gradually recognized. Therefore, circRNA may represent a novel marker for early diagnosis of this disease and a focus of targeted clinical therapy. CircRNA is a type of non-coding RNA with a closed circular structure formed by covalent bonds. Some circRNAs can act as “sponges” to adsorb microRNAs (miRNAs) and play the role of competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) to remove their inhibitory effects on the target genes of miRNA. Thus, they can indirectly restore the expression of target genes. The circRNA–miRNA–mRNA network plays a regulatory role in the proliferation, invasion, metastasis, and other biological behaviors of pancreatic cancer. Given the recent advances in circRNA, this review seeks to provide an overview of the biological function of circRNA and highlights the recent research progress regarding the molecular mechanism of circRNA for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Keywords:

• circular RNA
• pancreatic cancer
• biological function
• biomarker
• targeted therapy

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81900601), the Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province (Grant No. 20180530014), University innovation team and innovative talent support program of Liaoning Province (Grant No. LR2019073), and Outstanding Scientific Fund of Shengjing Hospital (Grant No. 201701).

Disclosure

Dr Nan Ge reports grants from Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning Province (Grant No. 20180530014), during the conduct of the study; Dr Jintao Guo report grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81900601), during the conduct of the study.

Dr Siyu Sun reports grants from University innovation team and innovative talent support program of Liaoning Province (Grant No. LR2019073), from Outstanding Scientific Fund of Shengjing Hospital (Grant No. 201701), during the conduct of the study. The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.