Lingling Chen was invited to publish a review on the topic of long noncoding RNA research in Nature Methods

On October 6, Chen Lingling, a researcher at the Center for Excellence and Innovation in Molecular Cell Science (Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited to deliver a keynote commentary entitled "Towards higher-resolution and in vivo understanding of lncRNA biogenesis and function" at Nature Methods.
The cutting-edge progress brought by the application of new technologies to the study of long non-coding RNA and the challenges
of future research are discussed.

In recent years, with the development and application of RNA sequencing technology, more than 100,000 long non-coding RNAs have been found in mammals, and exist in the form of cell and tissue-specific, spatiotemporal and sub-cell distribution specific, and are involved in regulating gene expression
.
Advances in research methods and technologies have improved the understanding of long noncoding RNAs to a certain extent, but the comprehensive decoding of the life cycle and functional mechanisms of long noncoding RNAs is far from complete
。 In this discussion, researcher Lingling Chen interprets the progress
of research methods from the perspective of "who I (long noncoding RNA) is, when I am transcribed, where I am located, how I work, and what I do", from the perspective of 1) long noncoding RNA generation, localization and function, 2) long noncoding RNA interaction factors, structure and dose effects, and 3) long noncoding RNA deletion of biological phenotypes 。 At the same time, the paper also points out that the natural flexibility, folding and heterogeneity of long non-coding RNA molecules bring challenges to related research, and proposes that the development of the third generation of long-reading code RNA sequencing technology, ultra-high-resolution micro-imaging technology, and based on gene editing and base editor technology bring new opportunities for long non-coding RNA research, and put forward new directions
for related research.

Lingling Chen, a researcher at the Center of Excellence for Molecular Cells, is the sole author
of this paper.
The work was supported
by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Municipality, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Article link: https://doi.
org/10.
1038/s41592-022-01626-9

Complex life processes of long noncoding RNAs and long noncoding RNA-protein complexes