Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is an agnogenic, rare, and lethal disease, with high mortality and poor prognosis and a median survival time as short as 3 to 5 years after diagnosis. No effective therapeutic drugs are still not available not only in clinical practice, but also in preclinical phases. To better and deeper understand pulmonary fibrosis will provide more effective strategies for therapy. Mounting evidence suggests that noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) and their interactions may contribute to lung fibrosis; however, the mechanisms underlying their roles are largely unknown. In this review, we systematically summarized the recent advances regarding the crucial roles of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), microRNAs (miRNAs), and circular RNAs (circRNAs) and crosstalk among them in the development of IPF. The perspective for related genes was well highlighted. In summary, ncRNA and their interactions play a key regulatory part in the progression of IPF and are bound to provide us with new diagnostic and therapeutic targets.
Keywords: IPF; circRNA; crosstalk; lncRNA; miRNA; ncRNA.