Despite significant improvements during the past 3 decades, cardiovascular disease remains a leading worldwide health epidemic. The recent identification of a fascinating group of mediators known as long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) has provided a wealth of new biology to explore for cardiovascular risk mitigation. lncRNAs are expressed in a highly context-specific fashion, and multiple lines of evidence implicated them in diverse biological processes. Indeed, abnormalities of lncRNAs have been directly linked with human ailments, including cardiovascular biology and disease. Of particular interest to the cardiovascular research community, dysregulation in lncRNA regulatory circuits have been associated with cardiac pathological hypertrophy, vascular disease, cell fate programming and development, atherosclerosis, dyslipidemia, and metabolic syndrome. Although techniques in interrogating noncoding RNAs are rapidly evolving, a major challenge in studying lncRNAs remains navigating through multiple technical constraints. In this review, we provide a road map for lncRNA discovery and interrogation in biological systems relevant to cardiovascular disease and highlight approaches to decipher their modes of action.

尽管在过去的30年中取得了重大进步，但心血管疾病仍然是全球领先的健康流行病。最近发现了一个引人入胜的介导子，称为长非编码RNA（lncRNA），为缓解心血管疾病的风险提供了许多新的生物学方法。lncRNA以高度特定于情境的方式表达，多种证据表明它们参与了多种生物学过程。实际上，lncRNA的异常与人类疾病直接相关，包括心血管生物学和疾病。心血管研究界特别感兴趣的是，lncRNA调节回路中的失调与心脏病理性肥大，血管疾病，细胞命运的编程和发育，动脉粥样硬化，血脂异常和代谢综合征有关。尽管询问非编码RNA的技术正在迅速发展，但是研究lncRNA的主要挑战仍然是在多种技术约束下导航。在这篇综述中，我们提供了与心血管疾病相关的生物系统中lncRNA发现和审讯的路线图，并重点介绍了破译其作用方式的方法。