Circular RNAs and their participation in stemness of cancer

Circular RNAs (circRNA) are covalently closed single-stranded RNA molecules that act as important regulators of gene expression through different mechanisms. Meanwhile, cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a small subpopulation of cells, with properties similar to normal stem cells that arise during the development of cancer and support tumor growth, induce resistance to therapy, and are responsible for metastatic spread. Since the elimination of CSCs is an important goal of cancer treatment, the circRNAs that participate in regulating gene expression and signaling pathways linked to CSCs have aroused attention in recent years, especially because it has been suggested that these molecules may function as therapeutic targets and/or clinical biomarkers. Thus, the proposal of this work is to enumerate a series of circRNAs that have been shown to play a relevant role in CSCs and explain in detail the molecular regulatory mechanisms that they establish to perform that function.