Function of microRNA-143 in different signal pathways in cancer: New insights into cancer therapy

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs which participate in the post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. They play important roles in cellular events such as growth and differentiation. Deregulation of miRNAs is frequently evident in human cancers where their aberrant expression is associated with uncontrolled proliferation, metastasis, impaired cell cycle and DNA damage response. The miRNAs are important in cancer as ∼50% of miRNA genes are located in cancer-associated regions such as fragile sites of genome. MiRNA-143 is defined as an important tumor suppressor in a variety of neoplasms including solid tumors and B-cell malignancies. MiRNA-143 is involved in the pathogenesis of cancers by directly targeting several mRNAs such as Bcl-2, KRAS, HK2, DNMT3A, TP53 and MMP-13. In this study, an overview of the miRNA-143 function in different signaling pathways in cancer will be provided.