Circular RNA and RNA binding proteins act together and regulate glioma

Abstract

Circular RNAs, abbreviated as circRNAs, are exonuclease resistant, endogenously expressed RNA, that do not code for protein, and have a circular loop like structures with covalent closure of 5′ and 3′ ends. Plentiful circRNAs are found in eukaryotes and some of them are evolutionarily conserved. They play a crucial role in diverse cellular functions like cell division, cell cycle regulation, and gene expression. Altered expression of circRNA was observed in various diseases including several cancerous conditions and neurological disorders. Glioma is basically a type of brain tumor, which originates from neuroglia cells and metastasizes to other brain tissues. Glioblastoma is the most malignant variant of this cancer with a higher mortality rate and it is less curable as compared to other cancers. Common treatments available for this disease are chemotherapy and radiotherapy. But they have side effects that they cannot differentiate between normal cells and cancerous cells. Therefore, investigating these cancerous cells at the molecular level will be a more effective way to understand glioma, owing to the specific expression patterns of proteins along with coding and non-coding RNAs. Studies found circRNAs show differential expression in glioblastoma cells and they have diverse functions at various stages and conditions of the cell. This review discusses how circRNA and protein act together and regulate the progression of glioma by directly interacting with each other or via other indirect modes of regulation. The circRNA biomarkers of glioma can be used for diagnosis purpose and interaction between circRNA and RBP play a significant role in glioma regulation and targeting these interactions may act as a possible therapeutic strategy. © 2023