[an error occurred while processing this directive]

HEREDITAS ›› 2011, Vol. 33 ›› Issue (8): 870-878.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1005.2011.00870

• en • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Association of human microRNA related genetic variations with cancer

LI Pei-Yao1, 2, HE Fu-Chu1, 2, ZHOU Gang-Qiao1, 2   

  1. 1. Department of Genomics & Proteomics, State Key Laboratory of Proteomics, Beijing Institute of Radiation Medicine, Beijing 100850, China 2. Department of Functional Genomics, Beijing Proteome Research Center, Beijing 102206, China
  • Received:2011-04-01 Revised:2011-05-25 Online:2011-08-20 Published:2011-08-25

Abstract: microRNAs (miRNAs) are a highly conserved class of small noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression by post-transcriptional degradation or translational repression. miRNAs are involved in the regulation of cell apoptosis, prolif-eration, differentiation and other physiological processes, and are closely related with the development of cancer. More recently, it has been proposed that the presence of genetic variations (e.g., single nucleotide polymorphism and copy num-ber variation) in microRNA genes, their biogenesis pathway and target binding sites affect the miRNA processing machin-ery and targeting, and have a significant genetic effect. In this review, we focus on the miRNA-related genetic variations and cancer susceptibility and progression.

Key words: microRNA, polymorphism, copy number variation, cancer

CLC Number: