Cancers are characterized by several dramatic biological changes. Among the many post-transcriptional regulatory mechanisms, microRNAs are known as fine-tune regulators for their transcript silencing ability. Competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) are transcripts that share microRNA binding elements and can compete for them, thus regulating each other indirectly. ceRNA networks interconnect the regulatory control of different transcript classes of the coding and non-coding space and co-operate with other cellular and molecular regulatory mechanisms. Altered ceRNA networks are involved in tumor formation and progression as well as in chemoresistance, in invasion and in the onset of metastases. The analysis of changes in the balance between ceRNA transcripts could offer hints to identify novel pathways for diagnosis, prognosis and therapies in precision medicine interventions. Moreover, the possibility to query highly specific tumor databases, such as TCGA, and to combine clinical data, transcript expression and sequence information is allowing to develop specific predictive tools for precision medicine.

癌症的特点是几个显着的生物学变化。在众多转录后调控机制中，microRNA 因其转录沉默能力而被称为微调调控因子。竞争性内源性 RNA (ceRNAs) 是共享 microRNA 结合元件并可以竞争它们的转录物，从而间接地相互调节。ceRNA 网络将编码和非编码空间的不同转录物类别的调节控制互连，并与其他细胞和分子调节机制合作。改变的 ceRNA 网络参与肿瘤的形成和进展以及化学抗性、侵袭和转移的发生。对 ceRNA 转录本之间平衡变化的分析可以为确定新的诊断途径提供线索，精准医学干预中的预后和治疗。此外，查询高度特异性的肿瘤数据库（如 TCGA）以及结合临床数据、转录表达和序列信息的可能性允许为精准医学开发特定的预测工具。