XH lncRNA tend to participate in transcriptional or development regulations as their coding neighbors. Mus musculus

We report that head to head long noncoding RNAs contribute to transcription and developmental process. Thousands of lncRNAs have been identified in the whole genome, and classified to several subgroups based on the genome position with their coding neighbors. XH, the head to head subgroup is associated with transcription and development in GO analysis. Here, we knockdown serveral XH lncRNA by shRNA in embryonic stem cells and induce nondirectional differentiation by removing LIF or neural differentiation by RA. Knockdown of XH lncRNAs led to uniform downregulation of nearby coding genes, and form regulatory circuits with its nearby coding genes to fine-tune embryonic lineage development. We propose that XH lncRNA may function primarily as 'cis-regulators' of the expression of nearby protein-coding genes, and tend to participate in transcriptional or development regulations as their coding neighbors. Overall design: All RNA-seq(s) were designed to reveal the differentially expressed genes between wild-type or XH lncRNA knockdown ESCs during differentiation.