Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is among the most aggressive and lethal diseases with poor prognosis, worldwide. However, the mechanisms underlying HCC have not been comprehensively elucidated. With the recent application of high-throughput sequencing techniques, a diverse catalogue of differentially expressed long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) in cancer have been shown to participate in HCC. Rather than being “transcriptional noise,” they are emerging as important regulators of many biological processes, including chromatin remodelling, transcription, alternative splicing, translational and post-translational modification. Moreover, lncRNAs have dual effects in the development and progression of HCC, including oncogenic and tumour-suppressive roles. Collectively, recently data point to lncRNAs as novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers with satisfactory sensitivity and specificity, as well as being therapeutic targets for HCC patients. In this review, we highlight recent progress of the molecular patterns of lncRNAs and discuss their potential clinical application in human HCC.

肝细胞癌（HCC）是全球范围内最具侵袭性和致命性且预后不良的疾病之一。然而，HCC 的发病机制尚未得到全面阐明。随着最近高通量测序技术的应用，癌症中多种差异表达的长非编码RNA（lncRNA）已被证明参与HCC。它们不再是“转录噪音”，而是成为许多生物过程的重要调节因子，包括染色质重塑、转录、选择性剪接、翻译和翻译后修饰。此外，lncRNA在HCC的发生和进展中具有双重作用，包括致癌和抑癌作用。总的来说，最近的数据表明 lncRNA 作为新型诊断和预后生物标志物，具有令人满意的敏感性和特异性，并且是 HCC 患者的治疗靶点。在这篇综述中，我们重点介绍了 lncRNA 分子模式的最新进展，并讨论了它们在人类 HCC 中的潜在临床应用。