Fig. 3

LncRNAs interactions and functions, and the mechanism of lncRNAs acting as miRNA sponge. a LncRNAs regulate gene expression by affecting local chromatin structure or recruiting regulatory proteins to specific loci. b LncRNAs facilitate RNA inhibition and degradation through interacting with mRNA and miRNA to control splicing or acting as a molecular sponge. c LncRNAs can serve as molecular scaffolds, guides, or decoys for regulatory proteins to regulate protein stability, activity, and localization. d Some lncRNAs are capable of encoding short peptides. e MiRNAs are able to directly bind to the matched regions of mRNAs by specific identification in a base-pairing manner, and thus inducing mRNA degradation at the post-transcriptional level by forming RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) with related proteins such as Argonaute 2 (AGO2). LncRNAs harbor the miRNA response elements (MREs) with complementary miRNA binding sites and can competitively bind to miRNAs. Therefore, lncRNAs are capable of regulating the expression of mRNAs and exert its biological functions by sequestering functional miRNA molecules