Small biomarkers with massive impacts: PI3K/AKT/mTOR signalling and microRNA crosstalk regulate nasopharyngeal carcinoma

miRNAs as potential game-changers in head and neck cancer: Future clinical and medicinal uses

Head and neck cancers (HNCs) are a group of heterogeneous tumors formed most frequently from epithelial cells of the larynx, lips, oropharynx, nasopharynx, and mouth. Numerous epigenetic components, including miRNAs, have been demonstrated to have an impact on HNCs characteristics like progression, angiogenesis, initiation, and resistance to therapeutic interventions. The miRNAs may control the production of numerous genes linked to HNCs pathogenesis. The roles that miRNAs play in angiogenesis, invasion, metastasis, cell cycle, proliferation, and apoptosis are responsible for this impact. The miRNAs also have an impact on crucial HNCs-related mechanistic networks like the WNT/β-catenin signaling, PTEN/Akt/mTOR pathway, TGFβ, and KRAS mutations. miRNAs may affect how the HNCs respond to treatments like radiation and chemotherapy in addition to pathophysiology. This review aims to demonstrate the relationship between miRNAs and HNCs with a particular emphasis on how miRNAs impact HNCs signaling networks.

Modulation of AKT Pathway-Targeting miRNAs for Cancer Cell Treatment with Natural Products

Many miRNAs are known to target the AKT serine-threonine kinase (AKT) pathway, which is critical for the regulation of several cell functions in cancer cell development. Many natural products exhibiting anticancer effects have been reported, but their connections to the AKT pathway (AKT and its effectors) and miRNAs have rarely been investigated. This review aimed to demarcate the relationship between miRNAs and the AKT pathway during the regulation of cancer cell functions by natural products. Identifying the connections between miRNAs and the AKT pathway and between miRNAs and natural products made it possible to establish an miRNA/AKT/natural product axis to facilitate a better understanding of their anticancer mechanisms. Moreover, the miRNA database (miRDB) was used to retrieve more AKT pathway-related target candidates for miRNAs. By evaluating the reported facts, the cell functions of these database-generated candidates were connected to natural products. Therefore, this review provides a comprehensive overview of the natural product/miRNA/AKT pathway in the modulation of cancer cell development.

Insight into LncRNA- and CircRNA-Mediated CeRNAs: Regulatory Network and Implications in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma—A Narrative Literature Review

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a kind of head-and-neck malignant tumor, and distant metastasis treatment resistance is the leading cause of patient death. In-depth understanding of NPC progression and treatment failure remains to be explored. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and circular RNAs (circRNAs) are noncoding RNAs that play key regulatory role in shaping tumor cell activities. Recent studies have revealed that lncRNA and circRNA function as competitive endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) by regulating the posttranscriptional expression of genes as miRNA baits. The imbalanced ceRNA networks derived from lncRNA/circRNA-miRNA-mRNA interaction are widely found to contribute to NPC development. Herein, we summarize typical examples of lncRNA/circRNA-associated ceRNAs in recent years, which involved the potential molecular mechanisms in the regulation of proliferation, apoptosis, treatment resistance and metastasis of NPC, and discuss their potential clinical significance in the prognosis and treatment of NPC. Interpreting the involvement of ceRNAs networks will provide new insight into the pathogenesis and treatment strategies of NPC. However, ceRNA regulatory mechanism has some limitations currently. Screening the most effective ceRNA targets and the clinical application of ceRNA still has many challenges.