MicroRNAs:New Pathogenic Factors and Clinical Markers in Myeloid Leukemia

MicroRNAs(miRNAs) are a family of small non-coding RNAs of 18 ～ 25 nucleotides that interact with the 3′ UTR of targeted native coding mRNAs to reduce their cleavage or translation repression,thus to negatively regulate the expression of target genes at the post-transcriptional level.It had been demonstrated that miRNAs were extensively involved in many cell activity and cancer pathogenesis,including several aspects that play an important functions in the differentiation of hematopoietic lineage and related to leukemia.Acute myeloid leukemia(AML) is a heterogeneous type of genetically diverse hematopoietic malignancies with the highest morbidity in China among all types of myeloid leukemia.Aberrant microRNAs expression were observed in various genetic subtypes of AMLs,and could be used as markers for leukemia diagnosis or prognosis.The function of certain microRNAs in normal lineage development has been explored,meanwhile the abnormally expressed microRNAs in myeloid leukemia have been shown to functionally relevant to leukemogenesis.Hence,developing targeting medicine of specific miRNAs is promising as a novel approach for myeloid leukemia therapy.