Super enhancer lncRNAs: a novel hallmark in cancer

Abstract

Super enhancers (SEs) consist of clusters of enhancers, harboring an unusually high density of transcription factors, mediator coactivators and epigenetic modifications. SEs play a crucial role in the maintenance of cancer cell identity and promoting oncogenic transcription. Super enhancer lncRNAs (SE-lncRNAs) refer to either transcript from SEs locus or interact with SEs, whose transcriptional activity is highly dependent on SEs. Moreover, these SE-lncRNAs can interact with their associated enhancer regions in cis and modulate the expression of oncogenes or key signal pathways in cancers. Inhibition of SEs would be a promising therapy for cancer. In this review, we summarize the research of SE-lncRNAs in different kinds of cancers so far and decode the mechanism of SE-lncRNAs in carcinogenesis to provide novel ideas for the cancer therapy.