Unlocking the secrets of long non-coding RNAs in asthma.
Thorax
; 77(5): 514-522, 2022 05.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-35246486
ABSTRACT
Asthma is a very heterozygous disease, divided in subtypes, such as eosinophilic and neutrophilic asthma. Phenotyping and endotyping of patients, especially patients with severe asthma who are refractory to standard treatment, are crucial in asthma management and are based on a combination of clinical and biological features. Nevertheless, the quest remains to find better biomarkers that distinguish asthma subtypes in a more clear and objective manner and to find new therapeutic targets to treat people with therapy-resistant asthma. In the past, research to identify asthma subtypes mainly focused on expression profiles of protein-coding genes. However, advances in RNA-sequencing technologies and the discovery of non-coding RNAs as important post-transcriptional regulators have provided an entire new field of research opportunities in asthma. This review focusses on long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in asthma; these are non-coding RNAs with a length of more than 200 nucleotides. Many lncRNAs are differentially expressed in asthma, and several have been associated with asthma severity or inflammatory phenotype. Moreover, in vivo and in vitro functional studies have identified the mechanisms of action of specific lncRNAs. Although lncRNAs remain not widely studied in asthma, the current studies show the potential of lncRNAs as biomarkers and therapeutic targets as well as the need for further research.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Asthma
/
RNA, Long Noncoding
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Thorax
Year:
2022
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Belgium