近年来，在小RNA的研究方面，长非编码RNA（long noncoding RNA, lncRNA）研究成为热点。
lncRNA是一类转录本长度超过200个核苷酸的RNA分子的总称。lncRNA的表达水平相对于编码蛋白的基因一般比较低。多数lncRNA虽然不直接参与基因编码和蛋白质合成，但在基因转录后调控、剪切和修饰具有十分重要的功能，也在很多生命活动中均起着举足轻重的作用。与疾病的发生发展、诊断治疗密切相关，迅速成为当今分子生物学最热门的前沿研究领域之一。另外，lncRNA的亚细胞位置上也呈多样化，在细胞核、细胞质和细胞器均有分布，甚至某些lncRNA具有独特的亚细胞位置，有可能是全新的亚细胞构成。
虽然研究甚少，但人们对lncRNA研究正在逐步加深。比如，文献中通过绝对定量的方式，可以对lncRNA分子进行直接定量，从而大致判断其对基因表达的调控属于顺式还是反式作用（具体见全文文献Figure 3和Figure 4）；对不同lncRNA以及管家基因在亚细胞水平上的表达做了分析（具体见全文文献Figure 3、Figure 4和Figure 5）；
值得一提的是，该实验室对ddPCR在lncRNA研究方面相对于qPCR技术发表了他们的看法，非常具有推广和借鉴意义。
总之，lncRNA的异常和疾病关系密切，将成为理解疾病、寻找疾病分子标记物、药物靶点的新的研究方向。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐英文全文下载：Digital Quantitation of Potential Therapeutic Target RNAs
NUCLEIC ACID THERAPEUTICS DOI: 10.1089/nat.2013.0427
Accurate determination of the amount of a given RNA within a cell is necessary to gain a full understanding of the RNA’s function and regulation. Typically, the abundance of RNA is measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). With qPCR, however, absolute quantification is not possible unless an adequate reference standard curve is generated. The method is not well suited for detecting low copy number templates and values vary depending on the specific primers used. To overcome these drawbacks, digital PCR (dPCR) has been developed to obtain exact values for RNA copies in a sample. Here we report the characterization of droplet digital PCR (ddPCR). We used ddPCR to quantify long noncoding RNAs from various subcellular compartments within human cells and found that results obtained using ddPCR parallel those from qPCR. Mutant huntingtin (HTT) protein is the cause of Huntington’s Disease, and we show that we can quantify human HTT messenger RNA and discriminate between the mutant and wild-type HTT alleles using ddPCR. These results
reveal insights into the design of experiments using ddPCR and show that ddPCR can be a robust tool for identifying the number of RNA species inside of cells.
