The new role of lncRNA MALAT1 as a tumor suppressor

The research about long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and their effect on the hallmarks of cancer is gaining more and more importance in recent years. lncRNA and messenger RNAs (mRNAs) are distinguished by their ability to translate the transcript into proteins (1). Instead, these non-coding and over 200 nucleotides long ribonucleic acids play significant roles in regulation of transcription, translation, chromatin remodeling and several intracellular pathways (2). Dysregulated expression of lncRNAs in cancer cells shows a direct correlation to the extent of growth, invasion and metastasis in many different cancer types and thus influences the prognosis and therapy response (1).