Long non-coding RNA

Long non-coding RNAs (long ncRNAs, lncRNA) are defined as transcripts longer than 200 nucleotides that are not translated into protein. This somewhat arbitrary limit distinguishes long ncRNAs from small non-coding RNAs such as microRNAs (miRNAs), short interfering RNAs (siRNAs), Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs), and other short RNAs. However, very recent research has shown that some lncRNAs have been misannotated and do in fact encode proteins.

A recent study found only one-fifth of transcription across the human genome is associated with protein-coding genes, indicating at least four times more long non-coding than coding RNA sequences. However, it is large-scale complementary DNA (cDNA) sequencing projects such as FANTOM (Functional Annotation of Mammalian cDNA) that reveal the complexity of this transcription. The FANTOM3 project identified ~35,000 non-coding transcripts from ~10,000 distinct loci that bear many signatures of mRNAs, including 5’ capping, splicing, and poly-adenylation, but have little or no open reading frame (ORF). While the abundance of long ncRNAs was unanticipated, this number represents a conservative lower estimate, since it omitted many singleton transcripts and non-polyadenylated transcripts (tiling array data shows more than 40% of transcripts are non-polyadenylated). However, unambiguously identifying ncRNAs within these cDNA libraries is challenging, since it can be difficult to distinguish protein-coding transcripts from non-coding transcripts. It has been suggested through multiple studies that testis, and neural tissues express the greatest amount of long non-coding RNAs of any tissue type. Using FANTOM5, 27,919 long ncRNAs have been identified in various human sources.

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