Gene

Frameshift mutation

Biology

Regulator

Mutation

Cancer research

Computational biology

Biomarker

Genetics

Nonsense-mediated decay

RNA splicing

Carcinogenesis

Cancer

Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark

Recently, Up-frameshift protein 1 (UPF1) is reported to be downregulated in various cancers and its low expression is closely correlated with poor prognosis. UPF1 is well known as a master regulator of nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD), which serves as a highly conserved mRNA surveillance process protecting cells from aberrant toxic transcripts. Due to dysfunction of UPF1, NMD fails to proceed, which contributes to tumor initiation and progression. This review shows a brief summary of the aberrant expression, functional roles and molecular mechanisms of UPF1 during tumorigenesis. Increasing evidence has indicated that UPF1 could serve as a potential biomarker for cancer diagnosis and treatment for future clinical applications in cancer.

UPF1: a potential biomarker in human cancers