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. 2012 Jan 9:2:107.
doi: 10.3389/fgene.2011.00107. eCollection 2011.

The Long Non-Coding RNAs: A New (P)layer in the "Dark Matter"

Thomas Derrien  1 , Roderic Guigó, Rory Johnson
Affiliations

The Long Non-Coding RNAs: A New (P)layer in the "Dark Matter"

Thomas Derrien et al. Front Genet. .

Abstract

The transcriptome of a cell is represented by a myriad of different RNA molecules with and without protein-coding capacities. In recent years, advances in sequencing technologies have allowed researchers to more fully appreciate the complexity of whole transcriptomes, showing that the vast majority of the genome is transcribed, producing a diverse population of non-protein coding RNAs (ncRNAs). Thus, the biological significance of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) have been largely underestimated. Amongst these multiple classes of ncRNAs, the long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are apparently the most numerous and functionally diverse. A small but growing number of lncRNAs have been experimentally studied, and a view is emerging that these are key regulators of epigenetic gene regulation in mammalian cells. LncRNAs have already been implicated in human diseases such as cancer and neurodegeneration, highlighting the importance of this emergent field. In this article, we review the catalogs of annotated lncRNAs and the latest advances in our understanding of lncRNAs.

Keywords: epigenetics; long non-coding RNA; non-coding RNAs; regulation.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Proportion of GENCODE polyA+ LncRNAs and protein coding at the gene (n = 9,277 and 18,063; respectively) and transcript levels with increasing thresholds of expression values (RPKM) in ENCODE RNASeq experiments.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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