Abstract
Single-cell RNA-seq in samples from the human neocortex demonstrate that long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are abundantly expressed in specific individual brain cells, despite being hard to detect in bulk samples. This result suggests that the lncRNAs might have important functions in specific cell types in the brain.Please see related Research article: www.dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13059-016-0932-1
Highlights
A large variety of long noncoding RNAs are expressed in brain tissue and are emerging as key regulators of neuronal function and diseases [1]
Previous findings have suggested that lncRNAs with the median expression of mRNAs (lncRNA) expression is more tissue and cell-type specific than mRNA expression [2], leading to the possibility that lncRNAs could be key regulators of cell fate and cell-type-specific function
It is possible that lncRNAs are expressed at uniformly low levels in all cells or it is plausible that they are more highly expressed and functional in only a subset of cells, and this is masked in bulk studies
Summary
A large variety of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are expressed in brain tissue and are emerging as key regulators of neuronal function and diseases [1]. Previous findings have suggested that lncRNA expression is more tissue and cell-type specific than mRNA expression [2], leading to the possibility that lncRNAs could be key regulators of cell fate and cell-type-specific function. Liu and colleagues have deployed single-cell RNA-seq of the human brain to provide a greater resolution of cell-type and single-cell specificity for lncRNAs [4].
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