LINC00339: An emerging major player in cancer and metabolic diseases

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are a series of RNA molecules without ability to code proteins. LncRNAs have emerged as significant players in almost all aspects of gene function and regulation and play crucial roles in many human diseases. Particular lncRNAs are deemed to be promising molecular biomarkers used for diagnosing diseases and determining patient prognoses and treatment efficacies. LINC00339 is a new budding lncRNA and much of evidence shows that it is abnormally expressed in multifarious diseases, including endometriosis, cardiomyocyte apoptosis, osteoporosis, digestive-system tumors, respiratory-system tumors, nervous-system tumors, and diseases involving other systems. Additionally, LINC00339 is remarkably associated with different clinical features, such as tumor size, TNM stage, and pathological grade. LINC00339 expression has been proved to upregulate in the aforementioned diseases and has been identified to promote disease occurrence and development. It is also reported that LINC00339 is associated with various cellular events, such as tumor cell proliferation, motility and invasiveness, the expression has also been proved that it is closely related to clinical symptoms in cancer patients. This review summarizes the relationships among expression levels, biological features, clinical symptoms, and regulatory mechanisms of LINC00339 in several diseases and discusses the clinical applications of LINC00339 as a cancer diagnostic, prognostic and treatment efficacy biomarker.