Insights into the role of long non-coding RNAs in DNA methylation mediated transcriptional regulation

Zhen Yang; Feng Xu; Andrew E Teschendorff; Yi Zhao; Lei Yao; Jian Li; Yungang He

doi:10.3389/fmolb.2022.1067406

Insights into the role of long non-coding RNAs in DNA methylation mediated transcriptional regulation

Front Mol Biosci. 2022 Dec 2:9:1067406. doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2022.1067406. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Zhen Yang¹, Feng Xu¹, Andrew E Teschendorff², Yi Zhao³, Lei Yao⁴, Jian Li¹, Yungang He^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Medical Research and Innovation of Pudong Hospital, The Shanghai Key Laboratory of Medical Epigenetics, International Co-Laboratory of Medical Epigenetics and Metabolism, Ministry of Science and Technology, Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
² CAS Key Laboratory of Computational Biology, Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China.
³ Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁴ Experiment Medicine Center, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, Sichuan, China.
⁵ Shanghai Fifth People's Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

DNA methylation is one of the most important epigenetic mechanisms that governing regulation of gene expression, aberrant DNA methylation patterns are strongly associated with human malignancies. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have being discovered as a significant regulator on gene expression at the epigenetic level. Emerging evidences have indicated the intricate regulatory effects between lncRNAs and DNA methylation. On one hand, transcription of lncRNAs are controlled by the promoter methylation, which is similar to protein coding genes, on the other hand, lncRNA could interact with enzymes involved in DNA methylation to affect the methylation pattern of downstream genes, thus regulating their expression. In addition, circular RNAs (circRNAs) being an important class of noncoding RNA are also found to participate in this complex regulatory network. In this review, we summarize recent research progress on this crosstalk between lncRNA, circRNA, and DNA methylation as well as their potential functions in complex diseases including cancer. This work reveals a hidden layer for gene transcriptional regulation and enhances our understanding for epigenetics regarding detailed mechanisms on lncRNA regulatory function in human cancers.

Keywords: DNA methylation; circRNA; histone modification; lncRNA; regulatory network; transcriptional regulation.

Publication types

Review