RNA Binding Protein as an Emerging Therapeutic Target for Cancer Prevention and Treatment

Abstract

After transcription, RNAs are always associated with RNA binding proteins (RBPs) to perform biological activities. RBPs can interact with target RNAs in sequence- and structure-dependent manner through their unique RNA binding domains. In development and progression of carcinogenesis, RBPs are aberrantly dysregulated in many human cancers with various mechanisms, such as genetic alteration, epigenetic change, noncoding RNA-mediated regulation, and post-translational modifications. Upon deregulation in cancers, RBPs influence every step in the development and progression of cancer, including sustained cell proliferation, evasion of apoptosis, avoiding immune surveillance, inducing angiogenesis, and activating metastasis. To develop therapeutic strategies targeting RBPs, RNA interference-based oligonucleotides or small molecule inhibitors have been screened based on reduced RBP-RNA interaction and changed level of target RNAs. Identification of binding RNAs with high-throughput techniques and integral analysis of multiple datasets will help us develop new therapeutic drugs or prognostic biomarkers for human cancers.