TUG1 and cancer: lncRNA TUG1 is thought to be involved in carcinogenesis and development mainly through competitive binding with miRNAs, regulation of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors, and effects on cancer proliferation and apoptosis (Young et al. 2005; Xiong et al. 2018) miRNAs are short RNAs that regulate a variety of physiological and biological processes in eukaryotic cells (Xia et al. 2020).