Abstract
Altering cell proliferation and differentiation are usually key events leading to cancer. As originally demonstrated by Sydney Brenner in 1960s, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans represents an animal model of choice to study mechanisms important to maintain proper cellular behaviour. This round worm has helped to elucidate components as well as new cellular pathways required for animal development. Among them, the discovery of the programmed cell death and non-coding RNAs (microRNAs) controlling gene expression are two remarkable examples. Recently, two studies have demonstrated, once again, that using C. elegans can help gathering insights on cellular mechanisms leading to tumour formation. Two microRNAs, miR-84 and miR-61, control the expression of the oncogene orthologues Ras and Vav indicating their capacity to act as tumour suppressors. These observations demonstrate that uncovering the function of microRNAs is important to increase our understanding of cancer.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr Jean-Yves Masson, Dr Gyorgy Hutvágner and members of the Simard laboratory for comments on the manuscript. The Ras/let-60 mutant strain has been kindly provided by Dr Christian Rocheleau. This work is supported by the Institute of Genetics from Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). MJS is a Junior 1 scholar from the Fonds en Recherche de la Santé du Québec (FRSQ).
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Jannot, G., Simard, M. Tumour-related microRNAs functions in Caenorhabditis elegans. Oncogene 25, 6197–6201 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.onc.1209921
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