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Review
. 2022 Jul 18:12:950374.
doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.950374. eCollection 2022.

The Key Role of microRNAs in Initiation and Progression of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Suliman Khan  1 , De-Yu Zhang  2 , Ji-Yu Zhang  2 , Mian Khizar Hayat  3 , Jingli Ren  4 , Safyan Nasir  5 , Muhammad Fawad  4   6 , Qian Bai  1
Affiliations
Review

The Key Role of microRNAs in Initiation and Progression of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Suliman Khan et al. Front Oncol. .

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the main type of primary liver malignancy and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a type of non-coding RNA that regulates gene expression mainly on post-transcriptional level has a confirmed and important role in numerous biological process. By regulating specific target genes, miRNA can act as oncogene or tumor suppressor. Recent evidence has indicated that the deregulation of miR-NAs is closely associated with the clinical pathological features of HCC. However, the precise regulatory mechanism of each miRNA and its targets in HCC has yet to be illuminated. This study demonstrates that both oncogenic and tumor suppressive miRNAs are crucial in the formation and development of HCC. miRNAs influence biological behavior including proliferation, invasion, metastasis and apoptosis by targeting critical genes. Here, we summarize current knowledge about the expression profile and function of miRNAs in HCC and discuss the potential for miRNA-based therapy for HCC.

Keywords: hepatocellular carcinoma; microRNA; oncogene; therapy; tumor suppressor.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The loss of function of tumor suppressive miRNAs result in an anomalous expression of the target tumor suppressor or oncogene, which contributes to tumor progression.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The initiation and development of hepatocellular carcinoma (left) and the expression of miRNAs and their targets (right) during the development of liver cancer. (A)-upregulated miR-NAs, (B)-targets of upregulated miRNAs, (C)-downregulated miRNAs, and (D)-targets of downregulated miRNAs.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic overview of miRNAs involved in the metastasis, proliferation, migration and invasion in HCC. The inhibition of validated targets (left side) by specific miRNAs results in increased metastasis, proliferation, migration and invasion.
Figure 4
Figure 4
GO and KEGG analysis by R package cluster Profiler. Enrichment analysis of Gene Ontology for targeted genes that include biological processes (BP), molecular function (MF), and cell fractions (CC) as well as KEGG pathways analysis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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