TY - JOUR T1 - Promising member of the short interspersed nuclear elements (<em>Alu</em> elements): mechanisms and clinical applications in human cancers JF - Journal of Medical Genetics JO - J Med Genet SP - 639 LP - 645 DO - 10.1136/jmedgenet-2018-105761 VL - 56 IS - 10 AU - Yun Jiang AU - Wei Zong AU - Shaoqing Ju AU - Rongrong Jing AU - Ming Cui Y1 - 2019/10/01 UR - http://jmg.bmj.com/content/56/10/639.abstract N2 - Alu elements are one of most ubiquitous repetitive sequences in human genome, which were considered as the junk DNA in the past. Alu elements have been found to be associated with human diseases including cancers via events such as amplification, insertion, recombination or RNA editing, which provide a new perspective of oncogenesis at both DNA and RNA levels. Due to the prevalent distribution, Alu elements are widely used as target molecule of liquid biopsy. Alu-based cell-free DNA shows feasible application value in tumour diagnosis, postoperative monitoring and adjuvant therapy. In this review, the special tumourigenesis mechanism of Alu elements in human cancers is discussed, and the application of Alu elements in various tumour liquid biopsy is summarised. ER -