Wang Hsiao-Lin V, Chekanova Julia A
Guangxi Key Laboratory of Sugarcane Biology, Guangxi University, Nanning, Guangxi, China.
Present address: Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Methods Mol Biol. 2019;1933:1-30. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-9045-0_1.
The discovery of pervasive transcription in eukaryotic genomes provided one of many surprising (and perhaps most surprising) findings of the genomic era and led to the uncovering of a large number of previously unstudied transcriptional events. This pervasive transcription leads to the production of large numbers of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) and thus opened the window to study these diverse, abundant transcripts of unclear relevance and unknown function. Since that discovery, recent advances in high-throughput sequencing technologies have identified a large collection of ncRNAs, from microRNAs to long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs). Subsequent discoveries have shown that many lncRNAs play important roles in various eukaryotic processes; these discoveries have profoundly altered our understanding of the regulation of eukaryotic gene expression. Although the identification of ncRNAs has become a standard experimental approach, the functional characterization of these diverse ncRNAs remains a major challenge. In this chapter, we highlight recent progress in the methods to identify lncRNAs and the techniques to study the molecular function of these lncRNAs and the application of these techniques to the study of plant lncRNAs.
真核生物基因组中广泛转录的发现是基因组时代众多惊人（或许是最惊人）的发现之一，它促使人们发现了大量此前未被研究的转录事件。这种广泛转录导致了大量非编码RNA（ncRNA）的产生，从而打开了一扇研究这些具有多样、丰富且功能不明、相关性未知的转录本的窗口。自这一发现以来，高通量测序技术的最新进展已鉴定出大量的ncRNA，从微小RNA到长链非编码RNA（lncRNA）。随后的发现表明，许多lncRNA在各种真核生物过程中发挥着重要作用；这些发现深刻地改变了我们对真核基因表达调控的理解。尽管ncRNA的鉴定已成为一种标准的实验方法，但对这些多样的ncRNA进行功能表征仍然是一项重大挑战。在本章中，我们重点介绍了鉴定lncRNA的方法、研究这些lncRNA分子功能的技术以及这些技术在植物lncRNA研究中的应用方面的最新进展。
