Linking diabetic vascular complications with LncRNAs

Abstract

Diabetes leads to markedly accelerated rates of many associated macrovascular complications like hypertension and atherosclerosis, and microvascular complications like nephropathy and retinopathy. High glucose, the hallmark of diabetes, drives changes in vascular and inflammatory cells that promote the development of these complications. Understanding the molecular processes involved in the development of diabetes and its debilitating complications can lead to much needed newer clinical therapies. Recently, long-noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been shown to be important in the biology of vascular cells and there is growing evidence that lncRNAs are also involved in the cell biology relevant to diabetic vascular complications. In this review, we provide an overview of lncRNAs that function in vascular cells, and those that have been linked to diabetic complications.