Biological Roles of Non-coding RNAs in Early Stages of Colon Carcinogenesis

---

Development of human cancers involves genetic and/or epigenetic alterations, which result in abnormal gene expression profiles. Recently, translational regulation by small RNAs, including microRNA (miRNA), has been found to have a major impact on human carcinogenesis.
This research group is focusing on the biological functions of SND1 (Tsuchiya et al., 2007), a component of the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), and a potential tumor suppressor miR-34a (Tazawa et al., 2007) in early stages of colon carcinogenesis. Screening of miRNA species responsible for cytotoxic stresses, including colon carcinogens and inflammation, and their biological roles in development of colon cancers also are under investigation using molecular biological approaches and animal models.