Enabling EMT: N-BLR promotes metastasis in colorectal cancer via regulation of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition

Over the past twenty years, the advent of deep sequencing technology has revealed the pervasive and widespread nature of transcription across the human genome, with ~80% being transcribed at some point during development (1). Given that <2% of the human genome is composed of protein-coding genes, there exists a vast and expanding network of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), including long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), the majority of which remain functionally uncharacterized. However, members of this diverse and broad class of large (>200 nt) ncRNAs have emerged as major regulators of several key biological processes, including differentiation and oncogenesis (2,3).