Dysregulated expression of long noncoding RNAs in gynecologic cancers

Abstract Cancers of the female reproductive system include ovarian, uterine, vaginal, cervical and vulvar cancers, which are termed gynecologic cancer. The emergence of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), which are believed to play a crucial role in several different biological processes, has made the regulation of gene expression more complex. Although the function of lncRNAs is still rather elusive, their broad involvement in the initiation and progression of various cancers is clear. They are also involved in the pathogenesis of cancers of the female reproductive system. LncRNAs play a critical physiological role in apoptosis, metastasis, invasion, migration and cell proliferation in these cancers. Different expression profiles of lncRNAs have been observed in various types of tumors compared with normal tissues and between malignant and benign tumors. These differential expression patterns may lead to the promotion or suppression of cancer development and tumorigenesis. In the current review, we present the lncRNAs that show a differential expression between cancerous and normal tissues in ovarian, cervical and endometrial cancers, and highlight the associations between lncRNAs and some of the molecular pathways involved in these cancers

An open-source advanced maskless synthesizer for light-directed chemical synthesis of large nucleic acid libraries and microarrays

Large- to ultra-large-scale synthesis of nucleic acids is becoming an increasingly important tool for understanding and manipulating biological systems, as well as for developing new technologies based on engineered biological materials, including DNA-based nanofabrication, aptamers and writing digital data at the molecular level. Several technologies for large-scale synthesis have been developed over the years, but all of them remain inaccessible to most researchers due to their complexity and/or use of proprietary technologies. Here, we present a fully open source, benchtop device for ultra-large scale nucleic acid synthesis that is also highly flexible and adaptable, able to accommodate a wide range of monomers and chemistries, while providing unrestricted access to synthesis parameter space