Involvement of long noncoding RNAs in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases

• Published in: Journal of translational autoimmunity (Online) Vol. 3; p. 100044
• Main Authors: Zou, Yaoyao, Xu, Hanshi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.01.2020; Elsevier
• Subjects: Autoimmune diseases; Epigenetic regulation; Long noncoding RNAs; Review article; Autoimmune diseases; Long noncoding RNAs; Epigenetic regulation
• ISSN: 2589-9090; 2589-9090
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jtauto.2020.100044

Autoimmune diseases are a group of heterogeneous disorders characterized by damage to various organs caused by abnormal innate and adaptive immune responses. The pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases is extremely complicated and has not yet been fully elucidated. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), which are defined as transcripts containing more than 200 nucleotides with no protein-coding capacity, are emerging as important regulators of gene expression via epigenetic modification, transcriptional regulation and posttranscriptional regulation. Accumulating evidence has demonstrated that lncRNAs play a key role in the regulation of immunological functions and autoimmunity. In this review, we discuss various molecular mechanisms by which lncRNAs regulate gene expression and recent findings regarding the involvement of lncRNAs in many human autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), idiopathic inflammatory myopathy (IIM), systemic sclerosis (SSc) and Sjögren’s syndrome (pSS). •lncRNAs are observed to be differentially expressed in various autoimmune diseases.•lncRNAs are involved in abnormal immune regulation and inflammatory responses in autoimmune diseases, which provides new insight into disease pathogenesis.•LncRNAs may have the potential of biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis of autoimmune diseases.