Long noncoding RNAs: A new player in the prevention and treatment of diabetic cardiomyopathy?

Diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) can cause extensive necrosis of the heart muscle by metabolic disorders and microangiopathy, with subclinical cardiac dysfunction, and eventually progress to heart failure, arrhythmia, and cardiogenic shock; severe patients may even die suddenly. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are a class of nonprotein-coding RNAs longer than 200 nucleotides. They have critical roles in various biological processes, including gene expression regulation, genomic imprinting, nuclear-cytoplasmic trafficking, RNA splicing, and translational control. Recent studies indicated that lncRNAs extensively participate in the development of diverse cardiac diseases, such as cardiac ischaemia, hypertrophy, and heart failure. Little is known about lncRNA in DCM. In this review, we summarize the current literature on lncRNAs in DCM studies, aiming to provide new methods for DCM's future prevention and treatment strategies.