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Review
. 2025 Jun 4;23(1):266.
doi: 10.1186/s12964-025-02274-0.

Unlocking the life code: a review of SnoRNA functional diversity and disease relevance

Yinghui Li #  1   2 , Xinzhe Chen #  2 , Shudan Xiao #  2 , Haoxuan Wang  2 , Bo Li  2 , MeiHua Zhang  3 , Kun Wang  4   5
Affiliations
Review

Unlocking the life code: a review of SnoRNA functional diversity and disease relevance

Yinghui Li et al. Cell Commun Signal. .

Abstract

Nucleolar small RNA (snoRNA), as a class of non-coding RNAs, play a crucial role in eukaryotic cells. They are widely involved in post-transcriptional modifications of ribosomal RNAs, including methylation and pseudouridylation, precisely regulating the process of ribosome biogenesis, ensuring the integrity of ribosome structure and function, and thereby guaranteeing the accuracy and efficiency of protein synthesis. snoRNAs not only maintain cell growth, proliferation, and differentiation under normal physiological conditions but also have abnormal expression closely associated with various diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative diseases. In recent years, with the innovation of research techniques, there has been a deeper exploration of the biosynthesis pathways, functional mechanisms of snoRNAs, and their potential value in disease diagnosis and treatment. This review comprehensively summarizes the structural characteristics, classification systems, biological functions, and disease associations of snoRNAs, and looks forward to future research directions, aiming to provide a systematic reference for further exploration of the mysteries of snoRNAs in related fields.

Keywords: Cancer; Cardiovascular diseases; Neurodegenerative diseases; Nucleolar small RNAs.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: Not applicable. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Basic structure of snoRNA. SnoRNA has two basic structures, C/D box snoRNA (A) and H/ACA box snoRNA (B), which interact with a variety of core proteins to form ribonucleoprotein complexes (C, D) and guide target RNA modification through complementary base pairing
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Biological function of snoRNA. Small nucleolar RNA guides the chemical modification and processing of rRNA, transcription from cDNA to mRNA, post-transcriptional regulation of mRNA, modification of snRNA and tRNA, as well as ribosome assembly through 2 ‘-o methylation and pseuduridine
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
snoRNA and CVDs. Different snoRNA are involved in cardiovascular diseases, such as myocardial infarction, ischemia-reperfusion, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and dilated cardiomyopathy
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
snoRNA and NDs. Different snoRNA are involved in cardiovascular diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and other
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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