A regulating mechanism of the abundance of long noncoding RNAs by cellular decapping enzyme

 Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA), as well as protein-coding mRNA, is capped at the 5' terminal during transcription. Recently, it has been discovered that diverse lncRNAs positively or negatively regulate the gene expression in eukaryotic cells. Interestingly, it is considered that a decapping enzyme, which is basically involved in mRNA decay by removing the cap structure, indirectly regulates gene expression by modulating the abundance of gene-regulating lncRNAs through the decapping activity. When a gene repressive lncRNA is decapped, subsequently decayed, the target gene expression is inversely increased. Thus, eukaryotic cells have a unique mechanism that control the amount of gene-regulating lncRNA by decapping, which results in an optimal gene expression.