The Research Progress of Long Noncoding RNAs in Autoimmune Diseases Li Zou, Md Rezaul Karim and Yun-fu Wang* Department of Neurology, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, Hubei 442000, P. R. China *Corresponding author: Yun-fu Wang, Department of Neurology, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, Hubei 442000, P. R. China, E-mail: wyfymc@163.com Received date: January 18, 2016; Accepted date: March 09, 2016; Published date: March 16, 2016 Copyright: © 2016 Karim RM, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Long Noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are transcribed RNAs molecules greater than 200 nucleotides in length. Nowadays, lncRNAs are found to have lots of functions including regulating transcription, post-transcriptional RNA processing, translation, gene rearrangement and chromatin modification. Abnormal expressions and functional abnormity of lncRNAs may play an important role in the development and progress of autoimmune diseases. Thus a systematic and comprehensive profiling of lncRNA will help us to have a deeper understanding of the pathogenesis of the diseases. This article will focus on the latest research progress of lncRNA in autoimmune diseases, which will contribute to clinical applications for diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of autoimmune diseases. Keywords: Long Noncoding RNAs; Autoimmune diseases; Research strategy; Systemic lupus erythematosus; Rheumatoid arthritis; Multiple sclerosis; Psoriasis; Sjogrens syndrome Introduction Over the past few decades research has generally focused on the protein encoding gene. However in recent years, through genome-wide transcriptional analysis research shows that transcription without choice of mammalian genomes may be common. here are a variety of codes of noncoding RNA (ncRNA) [1,2]. Prior to a period of time within noncoding transcription has been considered junk DNA and transcription of "noises" [3]. However recent studies indicate that, these ncRNA are also involved in the maintenance of tissue homeostasis and other physiological processes of nucleus [4-6]. According to its size ncRNAs can be roughly divided into two main categories: small ncRNAs (<200 nt), such as micro RNA (miRNAs); long chain ncRNA (≥ 200 nt). In the pathogenesis of inlammatory and autoimmune diseases, miRNA has been shown to be an important regulatory factor of numerous genes and signaling pathways, such as Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Psoriasis (Systemic sclerosis, SSc), Primary Sjogren's syndrome (SS) and Multiple sclerosis (MS) [7,8]. Recently ncRNAs in another major category, long noncoding RNA (lncRNAs) has been widespread concern in the ield of molecular biology. A growing body of evidence suggests that this type of RNA can be processed protein coding mRNA and participate in a variety of physiological and biological processes such as cell proliferation, diferentiation, apoptosis and immune response [9-13]. Previous studies have found that, lncRNAs focused on exploring the relationship between genomic imprinting, cancer and cell diferentiation. On the other hand, current studies have found lncRNAs in innate and acquired immune system, diferentiation and activation of immune cells, which play an important regulatory role. his suggests that, lncRNA play a key role in the autoimmune process and autoimmune diseases. In this review, we will briely introduce the biological efects of lncRNA and summarizes its development in pathogenesis, representing several autoimmune diseases in the current research progress. Overview of long noncoding RNA Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) is longer than the RNA molecule 200 nt; itself does not encode proteins with a speciic secondary structure, expression of tissue speciicity and temporal speciicity, oten located in the nucleus or inside cytoplasm in the form of RNA in gene transcription regulation, epigenetic level, chromatin modiication, post-transcriptional regulation and other multi-level, multi- participatory biological processes. Recent studies have found, lncRNA general transcription, mutation and regulatory function abnormalities can cause a variety of human diseases [14]. Brief description of the classiication and functions LncRNAs are following. According to lncRNA relative position in the genome encodes protein is mainly divided into ive categories: (1) justice lncRNA (2) an antisense lncRNA, both separately are protein-coding sequence of one or more exons encoding forward, reverse overlap (3) two-way lncRNA, refers to this lncRNA expression and protein-coding sequence adjacent to a promoter sequence and is located on the antisense strand, both opposite direction of transcription (4) gene lncRNA, it refers to its sequence entirely by another transcript intron derived lncRNA (5) between gene lncRNA, is located between two genes means independent, not associated with any protein-coding gene sequences transcribed from neighboring lncRNA [15,16]. Most characteristic lncRNA are not exactly accurate classiication within the genome. According to their characteristics, these lncRNA are: activated lncRNA (lncRNA-a) gene, ultra-conserved elements gene (pseudogene), telomere associated noncoding RNA (TERRAs), transcription (T- UCRs), enhancer RNAs (eRNAs), ring-type RNA [17-20]. hese noncoding transcripts oten associated with the coding region of the corresponding mRNA or minimal overlap, whether or not it may encode proteins, but these mRNA has its inherent function. LncRNAs has been involved in a variety of ways by a wide range of biological functions, but there is still little known about the molecular mechanism. We understand, LncRNAs major genetic inluences can output within genes almost every stage of the life cycle, from remodeling and epigenetic regulation of chromatin, transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation to protein metabolism [21,22]. Part lncRNAs involved in chromatin remodeling complex formation and Karim, J Neurol Neurophysiol 2016, 7:2 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2155-9562.1000359 Review Article Open Access J Neurol Neurophysiol ISSN:2155-9562 JNN, an open access journal Volume 7 • Issue 2 • 1000359 Journal of Neurology & Neurophysiology J o u r n a l o f N e u r o l o g y & N eu r o p h y s i o l o g y ISSN: 2155-9562