Artist's impression of an RNA strandFLICKR, VOSSMANLong noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) comprise a mysterious class of molecules that are more than 200 nucleotides in length, but do not code for any proteins. Now, in a December 15 study published in Science, researchers identify 499 lncRNAs as functional and have made strides toward understanding how these molecules work. Unlike most coding genes, which tend to be essential across diverse cell lines, nearly 90 percent of the lncRNAs genes identified appear to affect robust cell growth in just one of the six cell lines tested, the team reported.
“Long noncoding RNAs are a pretty mysterious set of transcripts that are abundantly present in most cells,” said coauthor Daniel Lim, a neuroscientist and clinician at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). “What wasn’t known is how many there are, and which are important for basic biological functions. Our surprising finding is that . . . most lncRNAs function in only one cell type. This exquisite specificity in RNA function is a result that I do not think I would have believed, had we not done a study on this scale.”
Prior studies have demonstrated that certain lncRNAs play critical roles in cellular function, development, and disease. “We have known for over a decade that a large portion of the genome is transcribed into ...
