J Cancer 2019; 10(26):6693-6702. doi:10.7150/jca.30877 This issue Cite
Review
1. Department of Oncology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, PR China;
2. College of Medical Sciences, Washington State University Spokane, WA, USA;
3. Hunan Cancer Hospital, The Affiliated Tumor Hospital of Xiangya Medical College, Central South University, Changsha, PR China;
4. Department of Thoracic Surgery, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, PR China;
5. Institute of Medical Sciences, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, PR China;
6. National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Disorders, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, PR China.
Drug resistance is an important cause of failure in cancer chemotherapies. A large number of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been found to be related to drug resistance in cancers. Therefore, lncRNAs provide potential targets for cancer therapies. The lncRNAs involved in cancer drug resistance are attracting interest from an increasing number of researchers. This review summarizes the latest research on the mechanisms and functions of lncRNAs in cancer drug resistance and envisages their future developments and therapeutic applications. This research suggests that lncRNAs regulate drug resistance through multiple mechanisms. LncRNAs do not affect drug resistance directly; usually, they do so by regulating the expression of some intermediate regulatory factors. In addition, lncRNAs exhibit a diversity of functions in cancer drug resistance. The overexpression of most lncRNAs promotes drug resistance, while a few lncRNAs have inhibitory effects.
Keywords: lncRNA, cancer, drug resistance, chemotherapy, exosome