Endometriosis is a common debilitating gynecologic disease. Almost 10% of reproductive-age women are affected by this disease; they commonly suffer pelvic pain and/or infertility. Early diagnosis of this multifactorial disease remains difficult because its etiology is not clear and the early symptoms are nonspecific. In addition, many reproductive-age women are unwilling to undergo invasive laparoscopic surgery because of the possibility of decreasing fertility. Thus, identifying biomarkers for the early diagnosis of endometriosis a key focus of current research. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are a class of noncoding transcripts that have length of > 200 nucleotides and lack protein-coding ability but still influence gene expression in various ways. With advances in genome-wide analysis, researchers have determined that lncRNAs play an important role in many human diseases, particularly tumors. Moreover, the role of lncRNAs in the pathogenesis of endometriosis has been continually recognized. In this review, we discuss the status of current research on dysregulated lncRNAs and their roles in the pathogenesis of endometriosis. We aim to stimulate new investigations toward the identification of lncRNAs as biomarkers for the early diagnosis and therapy of this long-term gynecological disease.

中文翻译：

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子宫内膜异位症中长非编码RNA的表达失调。

子宫内膜异位是一种常见的使女性衰弱的疾病。几乎10％的育龄妇女受到这种疾病的影响；他们通常会遭受骨盆疼痛和/或不育。这种多因素疾病的早期诊断仍然很困难，因为其病因尚不清楚，而且早期症状没有特异性。此外，由于生育力下降的可能，许多育龄妇女不愿接受侵入性腹腔镜手术。因此，鉴定用于子宫内膜异位的早期诊断的生物标志物是当前研究的重点。长非编码RNA（lncRNA）是一类非编码转录本，长度大于200个核苷酸，缺乏蛋白质编码能力，但仍以各种方式影响基因表达。随着全基因组分析的进步，研究人员已经确定，lncRNA在许多人类疾病，尤其是肿瘤中起着重要作用。而且，lncRNA在子宫内膜异位症的发病机理中的作用已被不断认识。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了失调的lncRNAs的最新研究现状及其在子宫内膜异位症发病机制中的作用。我们旨在激发新的研究，以鉴定lncRNAs作为这种长期妇科疾病的早期诊断和治疗的生物标志物。