Long noncoding RNAs shape transcription in plants

ABSTRACT

The advent of novel high-throughput sequencing techniques has revealed that eukaryotic genomes are massively transcribed although only a small fraction of RNAs exhibits protein-coding capacity. In the last years, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged as regulators of eukaryotic gene expression in a wide range of molecular mechanisms. Plant lncRNAs can be transcribed by alternative RNA polymerases, acting directly as long transcripts or can be processed into active small RNAs. Several lncRNAs have been recently shown to interact with chromatin, DNA or nuclear proteins to condition the epigenetic environment of target genes or modulate the activity of transcriptional complexes. In this review, we will summarize the recent discoveries about the actions of plant lncRNAs in the regulation of gene expression at the transcriptional level.

KEWORDS:

• Long noncoding RNAs
• circRNAs
• inverted repeats
• MEDIATOR
• Polycomb
• PRC1
• PRC2
• Pol II
• transcription
• alternative splicing
• genome topology

Acknowledgments

We thank Transcription for the invitation to contribute with this article. LL and FA are members of CONICET and CFF is a fellow of the same institution in Argentina. MC is a member of CNRS, France. Research projects in the Argentine lab are supported by Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica and in the French Lab benefits from the support of Saclay Plant Sciences-SPS (ANR-17-EUR-0007) and both labs are involved in the International Associated Laboratory LIA NOCOSYM from CNRS-CONICET.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche [ANR-17-EUR-0007]; Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica [PICT]; CNRS (Laboratoire International Associé NOCOSYM).