长非编码RNA(long noncoding RNAs,lncRNAs)是指长度大于200个核苷酸的RNA分子。近年来的研究表明,lncRNAs具有多种重要的生物学功能。随着现代生物技术的发展,lncRNAs转录本的预测及发现已经比较容易,然而不同于蛋白质编码基因序列所具有的指示功能,lncRNAs序列信息目前不提供功能信息的预测。因此,如何解码lncR-NAs的功能已逐渐成为基因组研究中的热点问题。我们将对探测lncRNAs功能的研究方法进行综述。
Long noncoding RNAs ( lncRNAs ) are transcribed RNA molecules greater than 200 nucleotides in length. In recent years, studies have shown that lncRNAs have many important bi-ological functions. With the development of modern biological technology, lncRNAs transcripts can be easily detected and pre-dicted. However, unlike protein-coding genes whose sequence motifs usually have indicative function, lncRNA sequence infor-mation is currently uninformative for function prediction. Thus, how to decode the function of lncRNAs has gradually become a hot issue in genome research. The paper summarizes the studies regarding the methods to probe the function of lncRNAs.