Roles of LncRNAs in Viral Infections

Liu, Weiwei; Ding, Chan

LncRNAs also participate in post-transcriptional regulatory networks. LncRNAs have recently been suggested to act as miRNA "sponges" by sharing common miRNA response elements (MREs) and inhibiting normal miRNA targeting activities on mRNA ( Figure 1C ). Competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) vie with mRNAs for miRNAs with shared MREs and act as modulators of miRNA by influencing the available amount of miRNA (Sen et al., 2014) . Linc-MD1 is a cytoplasmic lncRNA expressed during myoblast differentiation that acts as a ceRNA for miR-133 and miR-135 to control MEF2C, MAML1 and myoblast differentiation (Cesana et al., 2011) . In the upper panel and lower panel, lncRNA can act as decoy or as a guide to bind transcription factors or ribonucleoproteins, altering recruitment to specific genomic loci in cis or in trans, ultimately driving transcription of the localized gene. As shown in the middle panel, lncRNA can also act as signal to regulate gene expression. (C) LncRNAs act as miRNA "sponges" by sharing common MREs, inhibiting normal miRNA targeting activity on mRNA. Green arrows, activate transcription; Red arrows, inhibit transcription.