The Role of MicroRNAs in Colorectal Cancer

Sang Wook Kim

doi:10.4166/kjg.2017.69.4.206

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Kim: The Role of MicroRNAs in Colorectal Cancer

Review Article

Korean J Gastroenterol 2017;69(4):206-211.

Published online: 4 October 2017

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4166/kjg.2017.69.4.206

The Role of MicroRNAs in Colorectal Cancer

Sang Wook Kim

Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Chonbuk National University Medical School, Jeonju, Korea

Correspondence to: Sang Wook Kim, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Chonbuk National University Medical School, 20 Geonji-ro, Deokjin-gu, Jeonju 54907, Korea. Tel: +82-63-250-2302, Fax: +82-63-254-1609, E-mail: clickm@jbnu.ac.kr

Received 10 March 2017 Revised 27 March 2017 Accepted 27 March 2017

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of cancer related deaths in the world. Many oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes are involved in the development of CRC. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small, non-coding, endogenous RNAs in animals and plants. Recent studies have shown that miRNAs are associated with the mediation process of tumorigenesis, including inflammation, cell cycle, stress response, differentiation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion in cancer. These miRNAs have been linked to the development of CRC and recently studied as new potential biomarkers in the diagnosis and treatment for CRC. Specific miRNAs expression patterns help distinguish CRC from other colon-related diseases, and miRNAs can target the oncogenes and regulatory molecular pathways. Recent studies have demonstrated the restoration of tumor suppressive miRNAs and inhibition of oncogenic miRNAs for CRC treatment. Herein, we describe the diagnostic and therapeutic roles of miRNAs in CRC.

Keywords: MicroRNAs, Colorectal cancer

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Fig. 1.

Biogenesis of microRNAs. RNA polymerase II (Pol II) produces a primary microRNA (miRNA) that is then cropped to form a pre-miRNA hairpin by a Drosha. This double-stranded hairpin structure is exported from the nucleus by exportin 5. Finally, the pre-miRNA is cleaved by DICER1 a mature miRNA. The single stranded miRNA is incorporated into RISC, which then targets it to the target 3′ untranslated region messenger RNA (mRNA) sequence to facilitate repression and cleavage.^5,6

Table 1.

Oncogenic or Tumor Suppressor MicroRNAs in Colorectal Cancer

MicroRNAs	Expression	Target	Author
miR-4775	Up	Smad/TGFβ	Zhao et al.²⁹
miR-20a	Up	TIMP-2 (tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-2)	Xu et al.³⁰
miR-196b	Up	GATA6	Fantini et al.³¹
miR-200c	Up	PTEN,	Chen et al.³²
		VLDLR (low-density-lipoprotein receptor)	Kim et al.³³
miR-217	Down	MAPK1 (mitogen-activated protein kinase)	Zhang et al.³⁴
miR-612–5p	Down	MALAT1 (metastasis associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1)	Qiu et al.³⁵
miR-181a–5p	Down	CRNDE (colorectal neoplasia differentially expressed)	Han et al.³⁶
miR-613	Down	FMNL2 (formin-like 2)	Li et al.³⁷
miR-125b/100	Down	mTOR/IGF1R, FAS, XIAP	Fujino et al.³⁸
miR-487b	Down	LRP6/KRAS	Hata et al.³⁹
miR-506	Down	LAMC1 (laminin subunit gamma-1)	Zu et al.⁴⁰
miR-106a	Down	ATG7 (autophagy-related gene 7)	Hao et al.⁴¹
miR-128	Down	Galectin-3	Lu et al.⁴²
miR-543–3p	Down	OTUB1 (OTU domain-containing ubiquitin aldehyde-binding proteins 1; also called Otubain 1)	Yuan et al.⁴³
miR-143	Down	ERBB3 (epidermal growth factor receptor 3)	Bai et al.⁴⁴
miR-140–5p	Down	ADAMTS5, GFBP5 (thrombosponin motifs, insulin growth factor binding	Yu et al.⁴⁵ protein 5)
miR-195	Down	FGF2 (fibroblast growth factor 2)	Zhang et al.⁴⁶
miR-193b	Down	STMN1 (stathmin 1)	Guo et al.⁴⁷

miR, MicroRNAs.

Table 2.

MicroRNAs as Potential Biomarker in Various Samples of Colorectal Cancer

MicroRNAs	Expression	Sample type	Author
miR-7, miR-17, miR-20a, miR-21,	Up	Stool	Ahmed et al.⁶⁷
miR-92a, miR-96, miR-106a, miR-134 miR-183, miR-196a,
miR-199a–3p, miR-214
miR-138,miR-143, miR-146a, miR-222,miR-938, miR-9, miR-29b, miR-127–5p	Down	Stool	Ahmed et al.⁶⁷
miR-18a, miR-20a, miR-21, miR-29a, miR-92a, miR-106b, miR-133a, miR-143, miR-145	Up	Plasma	Luo et al.⁶⁸
miR-19a–3p, miR-223–3p, miR-92a–3p, miR-422a	Up	Serum	Zheng et al.⁶⁹
miR-630	Up	Tissues	Chu et al.⁷⁰
	Down	Tissues	Liu et al,⁷¹ Zhang et al.⁷²

miR, MicroRNAs.

Table 3.

Micro RNAs as a Potential Candidate for the Treatment of Colorectal Cancer

MicroRNAs	Expression	Sample type	Author
miR-198, miR-765, miR-671–5p, miR-630, miR-371–5p, miR-575, miR-513a–5p	Up	CRC cell lines	Zhu et al.⁷⁷
miR-202, miR-483–5p	Down	CRC cell lines	Zhu et al.⁷⁷

miR, MicroRNAs; CRC, Colorectal cancer.

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