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World J Meta-Anal. Jun 28, 2020; 8(3): 233-244
Published online Jun 28, 2020. doi: 10.13105/wjma.v8.i3.233
Role of non-coding RNAs in pathogenesis of gastrointestinal stromal tumors
Ioannis K Stefanou, Maria Gazouli, Georgios C Zografos, Konstantinos G Toutouzas
Ioannis K Stefanou, Department of Surgery, Hippocration Hospital Athens, Athens 11527, Greece
Maria Gazouli, Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Laboratory of Biology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens 11527, Greece
Georgios C Zografos, Konstantinos G Toutouzas, 1st Propaedeutic Department of Surgery, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens 11527, Greece
Author contributions: Stefanou IK, Gazouli M, Zografos GC, Toutouzas KG contributed to the writing of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Maria Gazouli, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Laboratory of Biology, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Michalakopoulou 176, Athens 11527, Greece. mgazouli@med.uoa.gr
Received: May 11, 2020
Peer-review started: May 11, 2020
First decision: June 15, 2020
Revised: June 22, 2020
Accepted: June 28, 2020
Article in press: June 28, 2020
Published online: June 28, 2020
Abstract

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are considered the model solid malignancies of targeted therapy after the discovery of imatinib effectiveness against their tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Non-coding RNAs are molecules with no protein coding capacity that play crucial role to several biological steps of normal cell proliferation and differentiation. When the expression of these molecules found to be altered it seems that they affect the process of carcinogenesis in multiple ways, such as proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation, metastasis, and drug resistance. This review aims to provide an overview of the latest research papers and summarize the current evidence about the role of non-coding RNAs in pathogenesis of GISTs, including their potential clinical applications.

Keywords: Gastrointestinal stromal tumors, Non-coding RNA, MicroRNA, Transcriptomics, Biomarker, Long non-coding RNAs

Core tip: There are several excellent reviews at the last decade contributed the role of non-coding RNAs in gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) carcinogenesis. However, until now, most of them focused only on the microRNAs characteristics. Recently there has been a substantial motion in understanding the role of other non-coding RNAs in GIST progress, like the long non-coding RNAs. This review provides an overview of both microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs role in GIST progression, their potential therapeutic use, their ability to predict drug sensitivity and many other aspects concerning GIST development.