生理科学进展最新文献

Small RNAs,including small interfering RNAand microRNA,are emerging as promising ther-apeutic drugs against a wide array of diseases.Current techniques for small RNA transfer use viruses or synthetic agents as delivery vehicles,however,these kinds of vehicles have a high toxicity and low target-specific.Exosomes ,natural nanocarriers derived from endogenous cells ,have the intrinsic ability to trav-erse biological barriers and to naturally transport functional small RNAs between cells.Exosome-based de-livery of small RNAs may provide an untapped source of effective delivery strategy to overcome impedi-ments such as inefficiency,unspecificity and immunogenic reactions,and exosomes potentially represent a novel and exciting delivery vehicle.In this review,we provide an update and overview of the new find-ings that reveal the potential applications of exosome-based small RNA delivery as therapeutics in clinical settings.

microRNAs (miRNAs)are one class of gene regulators whose mature sequences are ~22 nt in length. Normally miRNAs resulted in the cleavage and translation repression by specifically binding the 3'UTR of their target mRNAs in a base pairing form.Accumulating evidence has shown that miRNAs have important molecular functions and play critical roles in almost all biological processes. Therefore, miR-NA-related dysfunctions could be associated with the formation and development of human disease. Bioinformatics aims to provide tools for the research in life sciences. Currently, a number of bioinformatics methods and internet resources have been presented and developed for the investigations of miRNA-disease associations. In the review, we will describe the current status of the above topic and then discuss its future perspectives.

In the past decades, diabetes, in particular type 2 diabetes (T2D)mainly characterized by global insulin resistance and pancreatic beta cell failure, had become epidemic and a severe public health threat worldwide with the development of economy and change of lifestyle.The interactions between environment factors and genetic background play vital roles in the development and progression of T2D.More recently, it had been revealed that non-coding RNA including microRNA (miRNA)and long noncoding RNA (LncRNA)are widely involved inthe regulation of glucose and lipid metabolism. So far, it had been established that deregulated miRNA and LncRNA profile in main metabolic tissues is tightly associated with T2D,and intensive studies on non-coding RNAs had shed light on understanding the pathogen-esis of T2D.The current review aimed to briefly summarize and discuss the latest findings regarding the role and mechanism of miRNAs and LncRNAs in the regulation hepatic glucose and lipid metabolism.

The fact that RNA could take circular form was discovered as early as 1 976.For a long peri-od,circular RNAs (circRNAs)had been viewed as outliners of transcripts.With the development of sec-ond generation RNA sequencing and bioinformatics,recent studies have revealed that circRNAs are prev-alent,with high degree of conservation,and with cell specificity in eukaryotes.Increasing lines of evi-dence indicate that circRNAs,rather than being noise of splicing,have essential biological functions in a seriers of regulatory events,and may even be related to the etiology of some human diseases.

Piwi-interacting RNA (piRNA)is the largest class of small non-coding RNA,which usually expressed in germline cells.piRNA has a role in transposon silencing,and contributes to maintain ge-nome integrity.The C.elegans piRNA has a special role in a memory of previous gene expression.The discovery of piRNA in somatic cells and cancers showed the functional diversity of piRNA.In this article, we reviewed the piRNA's role in transposon,mRNA,lncRNA,DNA methylation and epigenetic regula-tion,and discussed the function of piRNA in cancers.