The physiological function of long-noncoding RNAs

He Chen; Ge Shan

doi:10.1016/j.ncrna.2020.09.003

The physiological function of long-noncoding RNAs

Noncoding RNA Res. 2020 Dec;5(4):178-184. doi: 10.1016/j.ncrna.2020.09.003. Epub 2020 Sep 17.

Authors

He Chen¹, Ge Shan¹

Affiliation

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Innate Immunity and Chronic Disease, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui Province, 230027, China.

Abstract

The physiological processes of cells and organisms are regulated by various biological macromolecules, including long-noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), which cannot be translated into protein and are different from small-noncoding RNAs on their length. In animals, lncRNAs are involved in development, metabolism, reproduction, aging and other life events by cis or trans effects. For many functional lncRNAs, there is growing evidence that they play different roles on cellular level and organismal level. On the other hand, many annotated lncRNAs are not essential and could be transcription noises. In this minireview, we investigate the physiological function of lncRNAs in cells and focus on their functions and functional mechanisms on the organismal level. The studies on lncRNAs using different classic animal models such as worms and flies are summarized and discussed in this article.

Keywords: CRISPR; CircRNA; LincRNA; Long noncoding RNA; Phenotype; Physiological function.

Publication types

Review