Inflammatory signaling underlies many diseases, from arthritis to cancer. Our understanding of inflammation has thus far been limited to the world of proteins, because we are only just beginning to understand the role that noncoding RNAs (ncRNA) might play. It is now clear that ncRNA do not constitute transcriptional ‘noise’ but instead harbor physiological functions in controlling signaling pathways. In this review, we cover the newly discovered mechanisms and functions of ncRNAs in the regulation of inflammatory signaling. We also describe advances in experimental techniques allowing this field of research to take root. These findings have opened new avenues for putative therapeutic intervention in inflammatory diseases, which may be seen translated into clinical outcomes in the future.

炎症信号是许多疾病的基础，从关节炎到癌症。到目前为止，我们对炎症的了解仅限于蛋白质领域，因为我们才刚刚开始了解非编码RNA（ncRNA）可能发挥的作用。现在很清楚，ncRNA并不构成转录“噪声”，而是在控制信号传导途径中具有生理功能。在这篇综述中，我们涵盖了ncRNA在炎症信号调节中新发现的机制和功能。我们还将描述使该研究领域扎根的实验技术的进步。这些发现为炎症性疾病的假定治疗干预开辟了新途径，将来可能会转化为临床结果。