The double-edged sword of long non-coding RNA: The role of human brain-specific BC200 RNA in translational control, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancer

The complexity of eukaryotic organisms involves the regulation of gene expression through DNA-protein, RNA-DNA, RNA-RNA, and RNA-protein interactions. The role of RNA molecules in the regulation of genes in higher species has become even more evident with the discovery that about 97% of transcription products are represented by non-protein coding RNAs (ncRNAs) including short ncRNAs and long ncRNAs (IncRNAs). In addition to the well-characterized role of ncRNAs in different physiological cellular processes, numerous studies have also indicated the crucial roles of ncRNAs in neurological diseases and cancer. Although involvement of short ncRNA in those pathologies has already been well documented, there is only scarce evidence to show the participation of IncRNAs. One of the examples of lncRNAs is BC200 RNA, which plays an important role in the regulation of dendritic protein expression. Mislocalization and overexpression of BC200 RNA leads to inadequate RNA delivery to the synapses and results in neurodegenerative processes of Alzheimer's disease and neoplastic changes in various groups of tissues. In this review, we summarize the current state of art in the field of the biological significance of IncRNAs, with particular attention paid to the physiological and pathophysiological role of BC200 RNA. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.