Competing endogenous RNA in cancer: a new pattern of gene expression regulation.

The competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) hypothesis was introduced. There is a new hypothesis about mRNA, pseudogene transcripts and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) regulate each other's expression by using microRNA response elements (MREs) to compete for the binding of microMRA (miRNA). To date, numbers lines of evidence in bioinformatics, cell biology and animal models from several famous laboratories have supported the ceRNA hypothesis. We also trace the history of the concept of ceRNA and discuss the molecular mechanisms of ceRNAs in cancers and their possible applications. In this review, we try to give readers a concise and reliable illustration on the mechanism, research approaches, and perspective of ceRNA in cancer.