title: Insights into the Role of microRNAs in Pancreatic Cancer Pathogenesis: Potential for Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Therapy.
abstract: Pancreatic cancer is a highly lethal malignancy and a fourth leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. Poor survival of pancreatic cancer patients is largely because of its asymptomatic progression to advanced stage against which no effective therapy is currently available. Over the years, we have developed significant knowledge of molecular progression of pancreatic cancer and identified several genetic and epigenetic aberrations to be involved in its etiology and aggressive behavior. In that regard, recent lines of evidence have suggested important roles of microRNAs (miRNAs/miRs) in pancreatic cancer pathogenesis. microRNAs belonging to a family of small, noncoding RNAs are able to control diverse biological processes due to their ability to regulate gene expression at the posttranscriptional level. Accordingly, dysregulation of miRNAs can lead to several disease conditions, including cancer. There is a long list of microRNAs that exhibit aberrant expression in pancreatic cancer and serve as key microplayers in its initiation, progression, metastasis, and chemoresistance. These findings have suggested that microRNAs could be exploited as novel biomarkers for diagnostic and prognostic assessments of pancreatic cancer and as targets for therapy. This book chapter describes clinical problems associated with pancreatic cancer, roles that microRNAs play in various aspects of pancreatic cancer pathogenesis, and envision opportunities for potential use of microRNAs in pancreatic cancer management.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncologic Sciences, Mitchell Cancer Institute, University of South Alabama, 1660 Springhill Avenue, Mobile, AL, 36604-1405, USA.
authors.forename: Mohammad Aslam
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncologic Sciences, Mitchell Cancer Institute, University of South Alabama, 1660 Springhill Avenue, Mobile, AL, 36604-1405, USA.
authors.forename: Haseeb
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zubair
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncologic Sciences, Mitchell Cancer Institute, University of South Alabama, 1660 Springhill Avenue, Mobile, AL, 36604-1405, USA.
authors.forename: Sanjeev Kumar
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Srivastava
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncologic Sciences, Mitchell Cancer Institute, University of South Alabama, 1660 Springhill Avenue, Mobile, AL, 36604-1405, USA.
authors.forename: Seema
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncologic Sciences, Mitchell Cancer Institute, University of South Alabama, 1660 Springhill Avenue, Mobile, AL, 36604-1405, USA. asingh@health.southalabama.edu.|Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Medicine, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA. asingh@health.southalabama.edu.
authors.forename: Ajay Pratap
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Singh
mesh_terms: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000235:genetics; D049109:Cell Proliferation / Q000235:genetics; D018450:Disease Progression; D019008:Drug Resistance, Neoplasm / Q000235:genetics; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D006801:Humans; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000235:genetics*; D008957:Models, Genetic; D058990:Molecular Targeted Therapy / Q000379:methods; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics* / Q000628:therapy; D011379:Prognosis
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D035683:MicroRNAs
keywords: Chemoresistance; Diagnosis and prognosis; Initiation; Metastasis; Pancreatic cancer; Therapy; microRNAs