Table 1. Roles and functions of lncRNAs in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

lncRNA	Location	Expression	Function in tumorigenesis	Classification	Potential mechanism	Reference
XIST	Xq13	Up	Oncogenic	Intergenic	XIST functioned as an oncogene in NPC through up-regulating E2F3 in part through ‘spongeing’ miR-34a-5p	[63]
lncRNA-ROR	18q21	Up	Oncogenic	Intergenic	Suppress p53 signal pathway and promotes proliferation, migration and chemoresistance	[69]
AFAP1-AS1	4p16.1	Up	Oncogene	Antisense	Inhibit AFAP1 protein expression and affected the expression of several small GTPase family members and molecules in the actin cytokeratin signaling pathway. promoted cancer cell metastasis via regulation of actin filament integrity	[9]
Hotair	12q13.13	Up	Oncogene	Antisense	Hotair promoted angiogenesis through directly activating the transcription of angiogenic factor VEGFA as well as through GRP78-mediated upregulation of VEGFA and Ang2 expression	[8]
HNF1A-AS	12q24.31	Up	Oncogene	Antisense	Promoted proliferation, migration and EMT	[37, 70]
lncRNA-LET	15q24.1	Down	Tumor suppressor	Intronic	inhibited NPC cells proliferation and induced cell apoptosis, transcriptional repressed by EZH2-mediated H3K27 histone methylation on the LET promoter	[71]
H19	11p15.5	Up	Oncogene	LincRNA	Inhibited E-cadherin expression and promoted invasion via the mir-630/EZH2 pathway	[54]
NEAT1	11q13	Up	Oncogene	Sense	Regulated EMT phenotype and radioresistance by modulatin themir-204/ZEB1 axis	[22]
MALAT1	11q13.1	Up	Oncogene	Sense	Regulated CSC activity and radioresistance by modulating mir-1/slug axis	[23]
LOC401317	NA	Up	Oncogene	NA	Inhibited cell proliferation and induced apoptosis	[10]
LINC00312	3p26	Down	Tumor suppressor	Intergenic	NA	[72]