A novel long noncoding RNA lnc158 promotes the differentiation of mouse neural precursor cells into oligodendrocytes by targeting nuclear factor-IB.

Long noncoding RNAs have been implicated in oligodendrocyte myelination and oligodendrocyte maturation, but their roles in normal oligodendrocyte differentiation are not fully defined. Here, we report a novel nonprotein-coding RNA, named lnc158, discovered in mouse oligodendrocytes identified in subependymal ventricular zone tissue by single-cell RNA sequencing. Lnc158 is an endogenous antisense transcript of nuclear factor-IB (NFIB) and complementary to 3' untranslated region of NFIB mRNA. NFIB is a member of the nuclear factor-I family and is essential in the development of many organs such as brains and lungs. We found that lnc158 transcripts serve a biological function by regulating the transcription level of the NFIB coding gene in neural stem cells. Overexpression of lnc158 increased the expression of NFIB mRNA and knockdown of lnc158 decreased the expression of NFIB mRNA, suggesting that NFIB is regulated positively by lnc158. Further analyses showed that overexpression of lnc158 in neural stem cells induced a modest increase in CNP, MBP, MAG, and OSP mRNA level, and enhanced induction of differentiation along the lineage of oligodendrocytes. These results together imply that lnc158 positively modulates the transcription level of NFIB mRNA, leading to the enhanced induction of oligodendrocytes.