miRNA: A Diagnostic and Therapeutic Tool for Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is fatal disease and one of the major causes of death among cancer patients. Diagnosis of PDAC during the early stages of cancer using ultrasounds and blood tests is difficult and chemotherapies alone for treating cancers are not very effective. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), small non-coding RNAs that alter the expression of genes in many processes, have been identified to play a significant role in pancreatic cancer regulation. miRNAs are classified as oncomiRs (tumor inducers) and tumor suppressor miRNAs. It has been found that miRNAs are regulated very differently in serum and cells surrounding cancer cells and within cancerous cells. miRNAs regulate cancer cell proliferation, invasion, and apoptosis by being differently up-regulated or downregulated and affecting the expression of genes involved in cancer cell signaling. Therefore, miRNAs can be used as effective diagnostic markers and drug targets for therapy. In this review, we describe the most recent studies performed for understanding molecular mechanisms and gene regulations in PDAC and their utility for diagnosis and therapy.