Circular RNA circCNOT6L regulates cell development through modulating miR-384/FN1 axis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Current advances and future perspectives on the functional roles and clinical implications of circular RNAs in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: more influential than expected

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is one of the most aggressive gastrointestinal cancers with high incidence and mortality. Therefore, it is necessary to identify novel sensitive and specific biomarkers for ESCC detection and treatment. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a type of noncoding RNAs featured by their covalently closed circular structure. This special structure makes circRNAs more stable in mammalian cells, coupled with their great abundance and tissue specificity, suggesting circRNAs may present enormous potential to be explored as valuable prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers for tumor. Mounting studies verified the critical roles of circRNAs in regulating ESCC cells malignant behaviors. Here, we summarized the current progresses in a handful of aberrantly expressed circRNAs, and elucidated their biological function and clinical significance in ESCC, and introduced a series of databases for circRNA research. With the improved advancement in high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics technique, new frontiers of circRNAs will pave the path for the development of precision treatment in ESCC.

Regulation of ferroptosis by noncoding RNAs: a novel promise treatment in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a highly prevalent tumor that requires extensive research. Ferroptosis is a unique cell death modality driven by iron-dependent phospholipid peroxidation manifested as an accumulation of lipid-reactive oxygen species. With further understanding of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs), numerous studies have demonstrated an important regulatory role of ncRNAs in ESCC through ferroptosis, including microRNAs, long ncRNAs, and circular RNAs. These ncRNAs influence the expression of the target gene to regulate ESCC progression by involving the ferroptosis signaling pathway. However, the specific regulatory mechanism of ncRNAs on ferroptosis in ESCC remains largely unknown. This review summarized the current knowledge on the relation between ferroptosis regulators, such as glutathione synthesis/metabolism, Keap1/Nfr2, and p53, by ncRNAs and ESCC. This review also proposed the possible therapeutic approaches for ncRNAs targeting ferroptosis in ESCC. This is the latest and most effective summary of recent research achievements of ncRNAs on ferroptosis in ESCC. These ncRNAs based on ferroptosis merit further investigation in preclinical research of ESCC.

Biological and clinical implications of metastasis-associated circular RNAs in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a prevalent malignancy with high morbidity and mortality as a result of early metastasis and poor prognosis. Metastasis is a multistep process, involving various signalling pathways. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of covalently closed noncoding RNAs, the aberrant expression of which is reported to be involved in several biological events, including cell transformation, proliferation, migration, invasion, apoptosis and metastasis. Several studies have reported interactions between circRNAs and metastasis-associated signalling pathways. The abundance, stability and highly specific expression of candidate circRNAs make them potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets in OSCC. In this review article, we comprehensively describe metastasis-related circRNAs and their interactions with epithelial-mesenchymal transition-associated molecules. We also describe the molecular mechanisms and clinical relevance of circRNAs in OSCC progression and metastasis.