Abstract
The World Health Organization predicts that infertility will be the third major health threat after cancer and cardiovascular disease, and will become a hot topic in medical research. Studies have shown that epigenetic changes are an important component of gametogenesis and related reproductive diseases. Epigenetic regulation of noncoding RNA (ncRNA) is appropriate and is a research hotspot in the biomedical field; these include long noncoding RNA (lncRNA), microRNA (miRNA), and PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA). As vital members of the intracellular gene regulatory network, they affect various life activities of cells. LncRNA functions as a molecular bait, molecular signal and molecular scaffold in the body through molecular guidance. miRNAs are critical regulators of gene expression; they mainly control the stability or translation of their target mRNA after transcription. piRNA functions mainly through silencing genomic transposable elements and the post-transcriptional regulation of mRNAs in animal germ cells. Current studies have shown that these ncRNAs also play significant roles in the reproductive system and are involved in the regulation of essential cellular events in spermatogenesis and follicular development. The abnormal expression of ncRNA is closely linked to testicular germ cell tumors, poly cystic ovary syndrome and other diseases. This paper briefly presents the research on the reproductive process and reproductive diseases involving ncRNAs.
Highlights
With the development of genome-wide sequencing technology and high-throughput sequencing technology, it has been found that about 93% of the DNA sequences in the human genome can be transcribed into RNA, but only about 2% of the DNA sequences eventually encode proteins, with 90% of the DNA sequences being transcribed into ncRNAs (Consortium et al, 2007; Consortium, 2012)
Mammalian transcriptome analysis revealed that most long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) are transcribed by RNA polymerase II, which is similar to protein-coding mRNA, with a 5 ′methylation cap and a polyadenylate tail but without a distinct open reading frame (Wilusz et al, 2009; Kopp and Mendell, 2018)
A large number of lncRNAs have been detected in the testes of humans, rats and mice during specific developmental stages; some of the functions of lncRNAs have been characterized and annotated, for instance, Mrhl (Arun et al, 2012), Testisspecific X-linked (Tsx) (Anguera et al, 2011), Dmr (Dmrt1-related gene) (Zhang et al, 2010) and HongrES2 (Ni et al, 2011) play an important role in testicular development and spermatogenesis
Summary
Received: 15 September 2021 Accepted: 18 November 2021 Published: 09 December 2021. Citation: He C, Wang K, Gao Y, Wang C, Li L, Liao Y, Hu K and Liang M (2021) Roles of Noncoding RNA in Reproduction. Studies have shown that epigenetic changes are an important component of gametogenesis and related reproductive diseases. Epigenetic regulation of noncoding RNA (ncRNA) is appropriate and is a research hotspot in the biomedical field; these include long noncoding RNA (lncRNA), microRNA (miRNA), and PIWI-interacting RNA (piRNA). MiRNAs are critical regulators of gene expression; they mainly control the stability or translation of their target mRNA after transcription. PiRNA functions mainly through silencing genomic transposable elements and the posttranscriptional regulation of mRNAs in animal germ cells. Current studies have shown that these ncRNAs play significant roles in the reproductive system and are involved in the regulation of essential cellular events in spermatogenesis and follicular development. The abnormal expression of ncRNA is closely linked to testicular germ cell tumors, poly cystic ovary syndrome and other diseases.
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