Fig. 1.

The mechanisms of lncRNAs in cancer progression. In nucleus, lncRNAs can recruit chromatin modifiers to bind to and effect targeted gene expression. LncRNAs can also bind directly to transcriptional factors and transcriptional promoters in nucleus regulating downstream gene expression. Besides, lncRNAs binding to RNA binding proteins can also influence a series of biological behaviors of tumor cells. In cytoplasm, lncRNAs and miRNAs competitively bind to mRNA which modulates targeted protein expression. LncRNAs can also directly bind to mRNAs to enhance their expression. Moreover, proteins ubiquitination can be affected by lncRNAs binding to targeted proteins