Long non-coding RNAs: Potential therapeutic targets for epilepsy

Sen Liu; Min Fan; Meng-Die Ma; Jin-Fang Ge; Fei-Hu Chen

doi:10.3389/fnins.2022.986874

Long non-coding RNAs: Potential therapeutic targets for epilepsy

Front Neurosci. 2022 Oct 6:16:986874. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2022.986874. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Sen Liu^{1

2

3}, Min Fan^{1

2

3}, Meng-Die Ma^{1

2

3}, Jin-Fang Ge^{1

2

3}, Fei-Hu Chen^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ School of Pharmacy, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.
² The Key Laboratory of Anti-Inflammatory and Immune Medicine, Ministry of Education, Hefei, China.
³ Anhui Provincial Laboratory of Inflammatory and Immunity Disease, Hefei, China.

Abstract

Epilepsy is a common and disastrous neurological disorder characterized by abnormal firing of neurons in the brain, affecting about 70 million people worldwide. Long non-coding RNAs (LncRNAs) are a class of RNAs longer than 200 nucleotides without the capacity of protein coding, but they participate in a wide variety of pathophysiological processes. Alternated abundance and diversity of LncRNAs have been found in epilepsy patients and animal or cell models, suggesting a potential role of LncRNAs in epileptogenesis. This review will introduce the structure and function of LncRNAs, summarize the role of LncRNAs in the pathogenesis of epilepsy, especially its linkage with neuroinflammation, apoptosis, and transmitter balance, which will throw light on the molecular mechanism of epileptogenesis, and accelerate the clinical implementation of LncRNAs as a potential therapeutic target for treatment of epilepsy.

Keywords: GABA; apoptosis; drug discovery; epilepsy; lncRNAs; neuroinflammation.

Publication types

Review