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In recent years, a new class of small noncoding RNAs, microRNAs (miRNAs) are 21-24 nucleotide-long RNAs, able to bind complementary sequences in 3’-untraslated regions (3’- UTRs) of several target mRNAs to induce their degradation or translational repression. It is revealed that miRNAs regulate various physiological and pathological pathways, such as cell proliferation and apoptosis, hemocyte differentiation, neuron polarity, insulin secretion, cardiogenesis, embryo later stage growth, tumorigenesis. Several miRNAs were directly involved in human cancers, including hepatocelluar carcinoma, lympho- ma, lung, breast, and colon cancers. Hepatocelluar carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumor. Advanced HCC patients have been led to poor prognosis. The overall 5-year survival rate of the patients is less than 5%. Up to now, earlier diagnosis of HCC include B-mode ultrasonography, computed tomography (CT) and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), how- ever, those, sometimes, might result in missed diagnosis and diagnostic errors. Thus, it is necessary to identify biological markers that can be used to screen high-risk patients in order to find and treat the suffering at early stage to increase relief and cure rate of the disease. It was reported that hepato-specific microRNA-122 (miR-122) was down-regulated in HCC derived cell lines. This review focus on miRNAs and relationship miR-122 and hepatocellular carcinoma, further to explore of miR-122 potential role in HCC biological therapy.
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