Published online Jun 28, 2020. doi: 10.13105/wjma.v8.i3.233
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
Processing time: 57 Days and 1.6 Hours
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.
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.