Apoptosis and the target genes of microRNA-21

Abstract

MicroRNA鄄 21 (miR鄄 21) is frequently up鄄 regulated in cancer and the majority of its reported targets are tumor suppressors. Through functional suppression, miR鄄 21 is implicated in practically every walk of oncogenic life: the promotion of cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis, genome instability and mutation, inflammation, replicative immortalization, abnormal metabolism, angiogenesis, and evading apoptosis, immune destruction, and growth suppressors. In particular, miR鄄 21 is strongly involved in apoptosis. In this article, we reviewed the experimentally validated targets of miR鄄 21 and found that two thirds are linked to intrinsic and/or extrinsic pathways of cellular apoptosis. This suggests that miR鄄 21 is an oncogene which plays a key role in resisting programmed cell death in cancer cells and that targeting apoptosis is a viable therapeutic option against cancers expressing miR鄄 21.