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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Sep 7, 2023; 29(33): 4927-4941
Published online Sep 7, 2023. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v29.i33.4927
Non-coding RNAs: The potential biomarker or therapeutic target in hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury
Jia-Li Shao, Li-Juan Wang, Ji Xiao, Jin-Feng Yang
Jia-Li Shao, Li-Juan Wang, Ji Xiao, Jin-Feng Yang, Department of Anesthesiology, The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University, Changsha 410013, Hunan Province, China
Author contributions: Shao JL collected the data, prepared the tables and wrote the paper; Wang LJ collected the data; Xiao J revised the paper; Yang JF conceptualized the idea, obtained the funding, and revised the paper; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82070648; and the Science and Technology Innovation Program of Hunan Province, No. 2021SK4014.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jin-Feng Yang, MD, PhD, Chief Physician, Director, Doctor, Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University, No. 283 Tongzipo, Yuelu District, Changsha 410013, Hunan Province, China. yangjinfeng@hnca.org.cn
Received: May 6, 2023
Peer-review started: May 6, 2023
First decision: July 9, 2023
Revised: July 22, 2023
Accepted: August 18, 2023
Article in press: August 18, 2023
Published online: September 7, 2023
Processing time: 117 Days and 23.9 Hours
Abstract

Hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury (HIRI) is the major complication of liver surgery and liver transplantation, that may increase the postoperative morbidity, mortality, tumor progression, and metastasis. The underlying mechanisms have been extensively investigated in recent years. Among these, oxidative stress, inflammatory responses, immunoreactions, and cell death are the most studied. Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) are defined as the RNAs that do not encode proteins, but can regulate gene expressions. In recent years, ncRNAs have emerged as research hotspots for various diseases. During the progression of HIRI, ncRNAs are differentially expressed, while these dysregulations of ncRNAs, in turn, have been verified to be related to the above pathological processes involved in HIRI. ncRNAs mainly contain microRNAs, long ncRNAs, and circular RNAs, some of which have been reported as biomarkers for early diagnosis or assessment of liver damage severity, and as therapeutic targets to attenuate HIRI. Here, we briefly summarize the common pathophysiology of HIRI, describe the current knowledge of ncRNAs involved in HIRI in animal and human studies, and discuss the potential of ncRNA-targeted therapeutic strategies. Given the scarcity of clinical trials, there is still a long way to go from pre-clinical to clinical application, and further studies are needed to uncover their potential as therapeutic targets.

Keywords: Hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury, Non-coding RNAs, MicroRNAs, Long non-coding RNAs, Circular RNAs

Core Tip: This review focuses on the recent progress in understanding non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) in hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury (HIRI). HIRI can alter ncRNAs expressions, which in turn modulates the pathophysiological processes that contribute to the development of HIRI. Differentially expressed ncRNAs from different sources (the liver tissues, serums and cells) are involved in oxidative stress, inflammatory responses, cell death and so on. ncRNAs are regarded as biomarkers for the diagnosis and assessment of liver damage severity, or as therapeutic targets for HIRI; however, their clinical transformation will still take a long time.