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Review
. 2016 Aug 15;44(4):1073-8.
doi: 10.1042/BST20160089.

Non-coding RNAs and disease: the classical ncRNAs make a comeback

Affiliations
Review

Non-coding RNAs and disease: the classical ncRNAs make a comeback

Rogerio Alves de Almeida et al. Biochem Soc Trans. .

Abstract

Many human diseases have been attributed to mutation in the protein coding regions of the human genome. The protein coding portion of the human genome, however, is very small compared with the non-coding portion of the genome. As such, there are a disproportionate number of diseases attributed to the coding compared with the non-coding portion of the genome. It is now clear that the non-coding portion of the genome produces many functional non-coding RNAs and these RNAs are slowly being linked to human diseases. Here we discuss examples where mutation in classical non-coding RNAs have been attributed to human disease and identify the future potential for the non-coding portion of the genome in disease biology.

Keywords: RNase mitochondrial RNA processing (MRP); ncRNA; small nuclear RNA (snRNA); small nucleolar RNA (snoRNA); tRNA; telomerase RNA component (TERC).

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Human diseases associated with classical ncRNAs
Mutations in both the nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that encode classical ncRNAs have been found to cause a number of human diseases. The diseases are listed along with the genes (in brackets) where mutations are found and have been described in this review. RNA secondary structures presented are not completely accurate representations of the specific ncRNAs.

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