19 - Regulatory RNA in Immunologic Diseases

Abstract

The majority of the human genome is transcribed into RNA. Newly discovered classes of RNAs include long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), microRNAs (miRNAs), and enhancer RNAs (eRNAs). These regulatory RNAs impact a vast array of biologic processes, including gene transcription, messenger RNA processing and translation, and protein function. They govern development and phenotypes of the vast array of cell lineages that exist in humans, and this is nowhere more evident than in the immune system. These classes of regulatory RNAs are also severely dysregulated in immune-mediated diseases. Interestingly, genetic variants thus far identified that confer risk for developing immune-mediated diseases are, in large part, localized in regions of the genome that transcribe regulatory RNAs rather than in regions of the genome that transcribe protein-coding genes. Taken together, this may suggest a model where genetic traits and environmental factors give rise to dysregulation of these classes of regulatory RNAs, lncRNAs, miRNAs, and eRNAs, which disrupt critical cellular processes and produce the array of immune-mediated diseases that exist in the human population.