Esen Tutar

MicroRNAs and Cancer; an Overview

MiRNAs are a family of small, endogenous, and evolutionarily conserved non-coding ribonucleic acids that have been involved in the regulation of several essential, cellular, and functional processes. MicroRNAs are known to play key roles in all types of cancer and function as oncogenes (oncomirs) or tumour-suppressors in up-regulation or down-regulation processes respectively. MiRNAs have potential power to be examined as prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers. Modulating miRNAs, based on two major approaches (miRNA mimics and miRNA antagonists), is used for clinical development of therapeutic miRNAs. This review emphasizes the latest discovery in the field of miRNA research involved in cancer, biomarkers, and therapeutics.

Therapeutic Targeting of microRNAs in Cancer: Future Perspectives.

Preclinical Research

Regulation of oncogenic genes by MicroRNAs and pseudogenes in human lung cancer.

Lung cancer is one of the most common mortal cancer types both for men and women. Several different biomarkers have been analyzed to reveal lung cancer prognosis pathways for developing efficient therapeutics and diagnostic agents. microRNAs (miRNAs) and pseudogenes are critical biomarkers in lung cancer and alteration of their expression levels has been identified in each step of lung cancer tumorigenesis. miRNAs and pseudogenes are crucial gene regulators in normal cells as well as in lung cancer cells, and they have both oncogenic and tumor-suppressive roles in lung cancer tumorigenesis. In this study, we have determined the relationship between lung cancer related oncogenes and miRNAs along with pseudogenes in lung cancer, and the results indicate their potential as biological markers for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.