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Gene & Protein in Disease circRNAs and cancer
Figure 2. Anti-cancers drug-resistant circRNAs in various malignancies. Differential expression of each circRNA promotes the resistance to one or multiple
drugs results in activation of the respective pathway and affects anticancer treatment efficacy, by altering cancer cell properties and/or drug distribution.
The illustrated circRNAs act mainly as miRNA sponges, leading to up-/down-regulation of the downstream targets of these miRNAs. Other modes of
action of circRNAs affecting the expression of key proteins implicated in therapy resistance.
the importance of such procedures and provide crucial samples makes them promising biomarkers for disease
information on how circRNAs function and are active. diagnosis, particularly for the onset, progression, and
prognosis of cancer. Identification of circRNA biomarkers
6. CircRNAs: Toward a unified nomenclature in blood and saliva and in other clinical samples such as
CircRNAs are becoming essential indicators of disease, urine and cerebrospinal fluid would be feasible in further
particularly in cancer, necessitating a unified naming research. More crucially, research on circRNAs opens up
scheme. In addition, developing new biochemical a new path for treating diseases, with the circularization
methods and bioinformatic methodologies add to the of RNA being the eventual goal for treating illness. For
evidence for distinguishing and classifying circRNAs. The instance, in the future, the overexpression of artificial
current terminology is based on circBase, which includes circRNA can function as a “super-sponge” or can be used
a numeric code and species information. In contrast, to silent the circRNAs in cells to remodel and alter the
circBank and circles build a circRNA annotation based expression profile of miRNAs and other RNAs, or RBP
on UCSC genomic coordinates (https://genome.ucsc. levels can increase the activities of a suppressor gene in the
edu/) using the gene symbol of the transcript. CIRCpedia context of cancer therapy. Although circRNAs have been
uses a distinctive name scheme that incorporates both the the subject of several research studies, little is known about
species and a circBase internal identification number. In the biological and molecular processes by which circRNAs
addition, circRNAs have been classified using a unique contribute to cancer development. Therefore, finding
vocabulary. The species is indicated by the first few letters numerous additional circRNAs implicated in diseases and
of the gene name, the exons involved in the circularization, investigating their functional motifs and target locations
and the gene name: For example, exons of the hsa-circ gene will be essential.
(exons7-8) [167] . The practical use of circRNAs in clinics still has a
7. Conclusion and perspectives long way to go as the field of circRNA research is still in
its infancy. CircRNAs alone will not be sufficient to serve
circRNAs have a wide range of functional possibilities as precise biomarkers for any particular malignancy.
due to their active roles as miRNA sponges, RBP sponges, Despite some reports that certain circRNAs are specific for
and transcriptional regulators in the modulation of individual cancers, the level of these circRNAs in the other
protein-coding gene expression. The fact that circRNAs cancer types has not been determined by any studies, and
are abundantly available in saliva, exosomes, and blood this underlies the current uncertainty and specificity of
Volume 1 Issue 2 (2022) 10 https://doi.org/10.36922/gpd.v1i2.138

