Role of microRNAs in the progression and metastasis of gastric cancer

Despite the discovery of cancer biomarkers and advancement in endoscopy, gastric cancer (GC) ranks third among the cancer death worldwide due to lack of early detection and poor understanding of its progression at the molecular level. Hence, early detection of GC is highly crucial for improving prognosis. MicroRNA’s (miRNA’s) belong to a group of non-coding RNA which are ~18–25 nucleotides long and could regulate the target gene expression at posttranscriptional level. Many findings have reported that dysfunction of miRNA could modulate the key biological processes and that has been associated with number of inflammatory disease including GC. As miRNA expression was associated with GC progression such as proliferation, migration, invasion, and apoptosis, the detection of miRNA in blood, gastric juice, tissues, and urine could offer new potential biomarkers for GC and design the novel therapeutic targets for GC. This review focuses on the biogenesis, role of miRNA in GC progression and metastasis, recent advancement and challenges in using miRNA as potential biomarkers for GC. Thus the information on miRNA’s can serve as potential targets in early detection of GC to improve the survival rate and in the development of therapeutic targets.