Cancer-related micropeptides encoded by ncRNAs: Promising drug targets and prognostic biomarkers
- Cancer Lett. 2022 Oct 28:547:215723. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2022.215723.
- 1. NANJING ANJI BIOTECHNOLOGY CO. LTD, Nanjing, 210033, China.
- 2. The Engineering Research Center of Synthetic Peptide Drug Discovery and Evaluation of Jiangsu Province, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 210009, China; State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines, Ministry of Education, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 210009, China.
- 3. Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia. Electronic address: [email protected].
- 4. The Engineering Research Center of Synthetic Peptide Drug Discovery and Evaluation of Jiangsu Province, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 210009, China. Electronic address: [email protected].
An exciting emerging topic in the noncoding RNA (ncRNA) field is the discovery of short Peptides called micropeptides (≤100 Amino acids), whose novel therapeutic opportunities remain under-explored. Micropeptides have been suggested to play essential regulatory roles in diverse species of physiological and pathological processes. Genomics studies have revealed that these micropeptides are encoded by small open reading frames (sORFs) concealed in misannotated ncRNAs, generally lncRNAs (long noncoding RNAs) and circRNAs (circular RNAs). These ncRNA-encoded micropeptides have been shown to contribute to tumorigenesis but little is known about their pathological mechanism because of challenges in translated sORF identification techniques. Here, we review the best-validated micropeptides involved in the progression of human Tumors and discuss their therapeutic and/or prognostic potential, at the same time, we also give our own suggestions on the concept of potential-coding RNA and micropeptides.