Perspective on long noncoding RNA functionality

Long non-coding RNAs or lncRNAs, are non-protein coding transcripts longer than 200 nucleotides, distinguishing them from small regulatory RNAs such as microRNAs (miRNAs), short interfering RNAs (siRNAs), Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs), and other short RNAs. As the number of lncRNAs-genes has gone above and beyond the number of protein coding genes in human, lncRNAs have begun to gain widespread attention in recent years, as a result the need to identify them as well as determine their functions has gained precedence.