Summary the recent researches of the role of CIRP in cell biology

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Since first being identified as cold-response protein two decades ago, efforts have been put into elucidating the physiological and pathological biological role of CIRP. Currently, CIRP is widely distributed across almost every cell in mammalian and is a stress responsive protein that is likely contributing to various stress responses differently through a combination of changes in protein levels and nucleocytoplasmic shuttling. Multiple functions of CIRP have been identified via acting either intracellularly or extracellularly. Intracellular CIRP acts as an RNA chaperone, regulating mRNA stability through its binding sits on its targets, or transmit signals through interacting with other signaling proteins, thus regulating cell proliferation, cell survival, apoptosis and circadian rhythm, telomere maintenance and carcinoma progression. In addition, CIRP can be secreted out of cells and extracellular CIRP functions as DAMP that promotes inflammatory response, thus CIRP has been involved in various acute and/or chronic inflammatory diseases. Considering the widespread role in multiple kinds of cancer, CIRP has been regarded as a new oncogene, and has a great potential to be a therapeutic target in cancer treatment. Although we have achieved great success in understanding the role of CIRP in cell biology and diseased conditions, there are still many questions unresolved, such as what is the role of CIRP in chronic inflammatory diseases such as obesity, diabetes and other kinds of diseases. Therefore, elucidating the role of CIRP in these diseases will have a significant impact on our understanding of (patho) physiology of diseases and may provide the rationale for the design of novel therapeutics.

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