Center for Genomic Science of IIT@SEMM, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), 20139 Milan, Italy.
IEO, European Institute of Oncology IRCCS, 20139 Milan, Italy.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Feb 25;24(5):4538. doi: 10.3390/ijms24054538.
The landscape of pervasive transcription in eukaryotic genomes has made space for the identification of thousands of transcripts that are difficult to frame in a specific functional category. A new class has been broadly named as long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and shortly defined as transcripts that are longer than 200 nucleotides with no or limited coding potential. So far, about 19,000 lncRNAs genes have been annotated in the human genome (Gencode 41), nearly matching the number of protein-coding genes. A key scientific priority is the functional characterization of lncRNAs, a major challenge in molecular biology that has encouraged many high-throughput efforts. LncRNA studies have been stimulated by the enormous clinical potential that these molecules promise and have been based on the characterization of their expression and functional mechanisms. In this review, we illustrate some of these mechanisms as they have been pictured in the context of breast cancer.
真核基因组中广泛存在的转录景观为鉴定数千种难以归入特定功能类别的转录本提供了空间。一类新的转录本被广泛命名为长非编码 RNA（lncRNA），其定义为长度超过 200 个核苷酸且无或有限编码潜力的转录本。到目前为止，人类基因组中已经注释了约 19000 个 lncRNA 基因（Gencode 41），几乎与编码蛋白的基因数量相当。功能表征 lncRNA 是分子生物学的一个主要挑战，也是一个关键的科学重点，这鼓励了许多高通量研究。这些分子具有巨大的临床潜力，刺激了 lncRNA 的研究，并基于对其表达和功能机制的表征。在这篇综述中，我们将举例说明这些机制，这些机制是在乳腺癌的背景下描述的。
