MicroRNAs as a New Molecular Biomarker for Diagnosis and Prognosis of T-cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (T-ALL): A Systematic Review

MicroRNAs (miRNAs, miRs) are small endogenous non-coding RNAs that regulate the expression of protein-encoding genes at the post-transcriptional level. Several studies have described the role of miRNAs in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), including tumor suppressor and oncogenic miRNAs. Down-regulation of miRNA expression is a prominent feature of human malignancy. This down-regulation can be triggered by certain chromosomal rearrangements, such as somatic deletions or translocations. New functional studies showed that dysregulation of microRNAs plays significant roles in cellular proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, in human cancers such as leukemia. In this review, we focused on the major recent findings in the microRNA signatures in ALL pathogenesis and we discussed the potential use of cellular and circulating miRNAs as new molecular biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. In this systematic review article, 76 articles were collected from 2004 to February 2019. We chose research and review articles from open access journals which include MeSH terms such as ALL, T-ALL, microRNA, oncogenic miRNA, Tumor Suppressor miRNA, microRNA Expression and signaling pathway. Investigation of data showed that alterations in oncogenic and tumor suppressor miRNAs expression changed the expression of genes related to accurate cell functions and consequently the pathogenicity of T-ALL.