2021 Articles

Circular RNAs regulate cancer-related signaling pathways and serve as potential diagnostic biomarkers for human cancers

Garlapati, Pranavi; Ling, Jinjie; Chiao, Paul J.; Fu, Jie

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are RNAs that have an important role in various pathological processes, including cancer. After the usage of high-throughput RNA sequencing, many circRNAs were found to be differentially expressed in various cancer cell lines and regulate cell signaling pathways by modulating particular gene expressions. Understanding their role in these pathways and what cancers they are found in can set the stage for identifying diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets of cancer. This paper will discuss which circRNAs are found in different cancers and what mechanisms they use to upregulate or downregulate certain cellular components.