REVIEW article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Pharmacology of Anti-Cancer Drugs
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1615306
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in targeted therapeutics for gastrointestinal cancersView all 6 articles
Crucial Roles of CircRNA-Mediated Autophagy in Digestive Cancer
Provisionally accepted
- 1Wenjiang District People's Hospital, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
- 2Sichuan Province Key Laboratory of Personalized Drug Therapy, Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences and Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China
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Digestive cancers are a significant global public health challenge due to their high incidence and mortality rates. Emerging research highlights the pivotal role of circular RNA (circRNA) and autophagy in the progression of digestive cancers. This review provides a summary of recent findings, showing that circRNA-mediated autophagy could either promote or suppress tumor development in esophageal, gastric, liver, pancreatic, and colorectal cancers. CircRNAs could regulate autophagy in digestive cancers by acting as competitive endogenous RNAs, influencing downstream target genes and signaling pathways. Dysregulated circRNAs contribute to tumor onset, progression, and chemoresistance by altering autophagy levels. Targeting specific circRNAs to modulate autophagy may offer potential as a diagnostic, prognostic biomarker, or therapeutic strategy for digestive cancers.
Keywords: Digestive cancer, circular RNA, Autophagy, Molecular mechanisms, chemoresistance
Received: 21 Apr 2025; Accepted: 07 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shi, Wei, Yang and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yong Yang, Sichuan Province Key Laboratory of Personalized Drug Therapy, Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences and Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, Chengdu, 611731, Sichuan Province, China
Juan Li, Wenjiang District People's Hospital, Chengdu, 611130, Sichuan Province, China
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