RNA therapeutic targeting of recalcitrant and rare cancers

In 2013, more than a decade ago, the “Recalcitrant Cancer Research Act of 2012” was signed into law in the USA. Recalcitrant cancers are among the leading causes of global cancer morbidity and mortality. At the inception of the act, priority was placed on lungs and pancreatic cancers. Despite the tremendous advancement achieved in the research and treatment of said ‘recalcitrant cancers’ in the form of developing novel or modified small molecule and antibody drugs, modest improvement has been recorded for patients’ survival. Also, current mortality and morbidity for recalcitrant cancers keep increasing. Similarly, rare cancers only enjoy very meager research and drug development efforts globally. Consequently, very limited advancement has been made towards therapeutic development targeting rare cancers. Hence, the current situation calls for re-strategizing research efforts and exploring different treatment modalities towards combating recalcitrant and rare cancers. On this note, RNA therapeutics strategy holds a unique and vital prospect because of its propensity to target coding and non-coding RNA transcripts in the biological system. Moreover, RNA therapeutics such as lncRNAs and circRNAs have been established to even modulate protein expressions and biological phenotypic activity through RNA-protein interactions. Therefore, the current review aimed at summarizing existing literature, clinical trials, and elucidating the important prospect of RNA therapeutics in mitigating the recalcitrant and rare cancers menace.