Long Noncoding RNAs in Cardiovascular Disease

Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing of nucleic acids have led to the fascinating insight that the majority of the human genome is transcribed. This includes tens of thousands of RNAs sized larger than 200 nucleotides that are not translated into proteins and are referred to as long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs). Until now, only a few of these lncRNAs have been functionally characterized. Here we highlight lncRNAs related to cardiovascular physiology and disease (CVD). We start with an overview of lncRNA classification schemes and of molecular functions of lncRNAs, giving examples of lncRNAs with cardiovascular function in each class. The main focus then is to systematically review 57 lncRNAs implicated in atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, aortic aneurysm, cardiomyopathy, angiogenesis, arrhythmia, and stroke. We discuss the evidence how these lncRNAs partake in the regulation of cell lineage specification, differentiation potential, cell proliferation, and cell survival in the cardiovascular cell lineages. Specific emphasis is put on recently published lncRNA knockout approaches, and on lncRNAs that have been implicated as important regulators in animal in vivo models of cardiovascular diseases and/or identified in human patient cohorts.