Research on microRNAs leads to new frontiers of clinical and translational relevance for gastric cancer management

Over the past few years several studies correlated the aberrant profile of small non-coding RNAs (microRNAs) with the occurrence of a number of human malignancies, including gastric cancer. Extensive evidence showed that microRNAs play an important role in the regulation of gene expression binding the 3’UTR of the mRNA target. Moreover, microRNAs are involved in the execution of important biological processes ranging from cell growth and cell cycle to apoptosis, cell migration, cellular senescence and chemoresistance. On the same extent, microRNAs’ profiling of cancerous tissues represents a new frontier for the identification of novel molecular biomarkers useful for the early neoplastic detection, the clinical monitoring and the prognosis assessment. In this article we highlighted and commented on the original findings recently provided by Tang and colleagues on the miR-200b and miR-200c involvement in gastric tumorigenesis. The expression of these two tumor suppressor microRNAs impacts on the DNA methylation process and restores the expression of important oncosoppressors genes previously silenced. These findings disclose new features of miRNAs' involvement in gastric tumorigenesis and provide evidences of their role as prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers. This also prospects the potential use of demethylating agents for new clinical and therapeutic strategies.