Lung Cancer Research Paper

Cancer is a group of diseases characterized by the uncontrolled growth and spread of abnormal cells (American cancer society, 2017). If the spread is not controlled, it can result in death. Cancer causes include life style factors (external) such as tobacco use and non-modifiable (internal) factors, such as inherited genetic mutations, hormones and immune conditions. These risk factors may act simultaneously or in sequence to initiate and/or promote cancer growth. Worldwide cancer statistics for the most common cancers Figure 1. Estimated cancer incidence rates world wide Source: Globocane 2012

The international agency for research on cancer estimated

Lung cancer occurs when gene expression goes awry leading to mutational epithelial cell in response to exposure to different stresses. In the past, cancer studies and investigation into mechanism of tumorigenesis mostly focused on protein-coding genes, considering them as the principal regulators of diseases and cancers. But, MatticK in 2004 enlighten that, evidence from numerous high throughput genomic platforms suggest that the evolution of developmental processes regulating the complexity of an organism is mainly due to the expansion of regulatory potential of the non-coding protein of the genome (Mattick, 2004). Recent advances in transcriptome studies also indicate that 98% of eukaryotic genome is transcribed to non-coding RNA (Rinn gl et al, 2016) while only 2% is believed to be transcribed and translated into proteins. Indeed the recent explosion in knowledge demonstrating the importance of ncRNA in the regulation of multiple major biological process impacting development, differentiation and metabolism have brought these heretofore neglected molecular players to the forefront (Mercer et al.,

Former studies have demonstrated that lncRNA are capable of influencing different cellular process like proliferation, cell cycle progression, cell growth and apoptosis (Han et al, 2013) and also involves post transcriptional gene regulation through controlling process like transport, splicing, transcriptional gene silencing through regulating chromatin structure, epigenetic gene expression, cell structure integrity etc. Because of their roles in the regulation of multiple molecular pathways, we can assure that, the long non coding RNA and its altered expression playing an important role in cancer etiology. For example, the lncRNA PCAT-1 (prostate cancer-associated ncRNA transcript 1) is over expressed in prostate cancer (Han et al., 2013) and expression levels of HOTAIR (HOX transcript antisense RNA), MALAT1 (metastasis associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1) are found to be up-regulated in colorectal, lung, breast, gastric, and bladder cancers. And some have seen as down-regulated like such as MEG3 (maternally expressed gene 3), lincRNA-p21, GAS-5 (growth arrest specific transcript