The effect of miRNA and autophagy on colorectal cancer

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) has become a concern because of its high recurrence rate and metastasis rate, low early diagnosis rate and poor therapeutic effect. At present, various studies have shown that autophagy is closely connected with the occurrence and progression of CRC. Autophagy is a highly cytosolic catabolic process involved in lysosomes in biological evolution. Cells degrade proteins and damaged organelles by autophagy to achieve material circulation and maintain cell homeostasis. Moreover, microRNAs are key regulators of autophagy, and their mediated regulation of transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels plays an important role in autophagy in CRC cells. This review focuses on the recent research advances of how autophagy and related microRNAs are involved in affecting occurrence and progression of CRC and provides a new perspective for the study of CRC treatment strategies.

Keywords: autophagy; colorectal cancer; microRNA; therapy.

Figure 1

Regulatory relationship between miRNAs and autophagy in CRC. Autophagy consists of a series of activities, such as phagophore formation, elongation, autophagosome and fusion with lysosome to form autolysosome. MiRNAs exert dual regulatory effects on autophagy pathways related to CRC through indirect or direct pathways. In the figure, the purple box represents autophagy‐related proteins, which indirectly regulate the autophagy process (eg, Bcl‐2, mTOR), the green box represents autophagy‐associated proteins, which are directly involved in the occurrence or formation of autophagy (eg, Beclin 1, LC3), and the yellow box represents the cellular process