History and development of non-coding RNAs

Abstract

The recent approaches including whole-genome and RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) studies have declared the landscape of transcription in eukaryotes is notably more complicated than had been previously appreciated. Many different non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), which contain no open reading frame (ORF), in most of higher organisms have been identified by using several approaches such as computational and experimental. While protein-coding genes constitute only a small portion of the eukaryotic genome, recent transcriptomic studies have revealed the widespread occurrence of ncRNAs. ncRNAs are categorized into two groups as housekeeping and regulatory ncRNAs. Housekeeping ncRNAs are constitutively expressed and categorized as ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs), transfer RNAs (tRNAs), small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs), and small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs). The regulatory ncRNAs can be classified as short RNAs (<200 nt), - including microRNAs (miRNAs) and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) - and long ncRNAs (lncRNAs; >200 nt) depending on their length. ncRNAs have significant roles in the regulation of biological events, such as environmental stress response to transcriptional or post-transcriptional levels. After a short historical review on the ncRNAs, we briefly explain their regulatory role in the cell. © 2020 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.