MicroRNA-21(miR-21) is frequently up-regulated in cancer and the majority of its reported targets are tumor suppressors.Through functional suppression,miR-21 is implicated in practically every walk of oncogenic life:the promotion of cell proliferation,invasion and metastasis,genome instability and mutation,inflammation,replicative immortalization,abnormal metabolism,angiogenesis,and evading apoptosis,immune destruction,and growth suppressors.In particular,miR-21 is strongly involved in apoptosis.In this article,we reviewed the experimentally validated targets of miR-21 and found that two thirds are linked to intrinsic and/or extrinsic pathways of cellular apoptosis.This suggests that miR-21 is an oncogene which plays a key role in resisting programmed cell death in cancer cells and that targeting apoptosis is a viable therapeutic option against cancers expressing miR-21.
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