[Current status and development of miRNA and siRNA research on gastric cancer].

RNA interference (RNAi) is an important topic of epigenetics research in post-genome period. RNAi works as a post-DNA replication regulator for gene expression, and it is related to the occurrence and development of malignant tumors. The most usual participators of RNAi are MicroRNA (miRNA) and small interference RNA (siRNA). This review summarizes the basic theory of miRNA and siRNA, and provides recent progresses of RNAi research on gastric cancer. RNAi analysis and technique not only act as powerful tools for studying gene function and action mechanism, but also have diagnostic and therapeutic potential in gastric cancer, even in all kinds of tumors.