REVIEW article

Front. Genet., 28 February 2020

Sec. Genome Architecture and Epigenetic Memory

Volume 11 - 2020 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2020.00095

ncRNAs: New Players in Mitochondrial Health and Disease?

  • 1. Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany

  • 2. DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany

  • 3. Institute of Human Genetics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

Abstract

The regulation of mitochondrial proteome is unique in that its components have origins in both mitochondria and nucleus. With the development of OMICS technologies, emerging evidence indicates an interaction between mitochondria and nucleus based not only on the proteins but also on the non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). It is now accepted that large parts of the non‐coding genome are transcribed into various ncRNA species. Although their characterization has been a hot topic in recent years, the function of the majority remains unknown. Recently, ncRNA species microRNA (miRNA) and long-non coding RNAs (lncRNA) have been gaining attention as direct or indirect modulators of the mitochondrial proteome homeostasis. These ncRNA can impact mitochondria indirectly by affecting transcripts encoding for mitochondrial proteins in the cytoplasm. Furthermore, reports of mitochondria-localized miRNAs, termed mitomiRs, and lncRNAs directly regulating mitochondrial gene expression suggest the import of RNA to mitochondria, but also transcription from the mitochondrial genome. Interestingly, ncRNAs have been also shown to hide small open reading frames (sORFs) encoding for small functional peptides termed micropeptides, with several examples reported with a role in mitochondria. In this review, we provide a literature overview on ncRNAs and micropeptides found to be associated with mitochondrial biology in the context of both health and disease. Although reported, small study overlap and rare replications by other groups make the presence, transport, and role of ncRNA in mitochondria an attractive, but still challenging subject. Finally, we touch the topic of their potential as prognosis markers and therapeutic targets.

Background

Molecular biology has historically described RNA as an intermediate between genetic information stored in DNA and protein synthesis. The estimated number of protein-coding genes is around 20,000 (Pertea et al., 2018). Classical approaches to classify RNAs with protein-coding potential—the messenger RNAs (mRNAs)—were typically based on the existence of open reading frame (ORF) longer than 300 nucleotides (nt), conservation, and/or functional domains (Dinger et al., 2008). Nevertheless, as protein-coding regions encompass only ∼2% of the human genome, the rest has been considered as “dark matter”. Detected RNAs not translated into proteins were named non-coding RNAs (ncRNA) and initially regarded as a transcriptional noise or the byproducts of genetic information flow from DNA to protein. Nevertheless, since the discovery of transfer RNAs (tRNAs) and ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs), the number and understanding of new and putative functional ncRNAs have expanded. Moreover, the boundaries between the coding and non-coding RNAs have become more blurry. Evidence is emerging that some RNAs, initially classified as non-coding, hide small ORFs (sORFs, < 300 nt) encoding for small functional peptides- micropeptides. Currently, we know dozen of different ncRNAs, which can be can be classified as housekeeping or regulatory ncRNS, according to Szymanski et al. (2003).

Housekeeping ncRNAs are constitutively expressed and mostly well functionally characterized classes of rRNAs, tRNAs, small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs), small-nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs), Ribonuclease P RNA (RNase P), Ribonuclease MRP RNA (MRP RNase, RNRP), and Telomerase RNA component (TERC). rRNAs are the most abundant class of RNAs in most cells, composing around 80% of cellular transcriptome. They serve as the essential binding site for ribosomal proteins within the assembled ribosome and contribute to the binding of extra-ribosomal factors and ribosome-associated proteins, resulting in the protein translation machinery (Noller et al., 2017; Simsek et al., 2017). tRNAs provide the interface between nucleic acids and proteins during translation by carrying an amino acid on its 3′ end and reading the mRNA by base-pairing induced by the ribosome, which uniquely determines the position of amino acids in proteins (Schimmel, 2018). snRNAs participate in the assembly and function of canonical spliceosomes (Wang and Burge, 2008). snoRNAs are localized to the nucleolus and guide the methylation and pseudouridylation of rRNAs, tRNAs, and snRNAs (Maxwell and Fournier, 1995). RNase P has a role in precursor-tRNA cleavage, RMRP in precursor-rRNA cleavage, and TERC in telomere synthesis (discussed later).

Regulatory ncRNAs are mostly produced in a cell- or tissue-specific fashion during certain stages of cell differentiation or organism development, or as a response to changes in the environment. They are still poorly understood and a very heterogeneous group that can act in different ways, from gene expression regulation to modulation of protein and RNA distribution within cells (Szymanski et al., 2003). They are divided based on their length into short (<200 nt) and long (>200 nt, lncRNAs) RNAs. Short ncRNAs consist of microRNAs (miRNAs), small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and Piwi-associated RNAs (piRNAs). miRNAs are endogenous, single-stranded, 19-23 nt in length RNAs that can bind to a target mRNA with a complementary sequence to induce its cleavage, degradation, or interfere with translation. Similar in size, siRNAs are exogenous RNAs that undergo processing and function in post-transcriptional gene silencing (Carthew and Sontheimer, 2009). piRNAs are single stranded, 26-31 nucleotides long RNAs that form complexes with the piwi family of proteins. These complexes have a role in RNA and epigenetic silencing of transposons (Siomi et al., 2011). Longer than 200 nt, lncRNAs represent the most abundant, yet least understood class of RNAs, with an average length ~ 1000 nt (Ulitsky and Bartel, 2013). They share some features typical for mRNAs, such as transcription by the RNA-polymerase II (Pol II), 5′end cap, 3′end polyadenylation and presence of alternative splicing isoforms (Kopp and Mendell, 2018). However, compared to the mRNAs, they exhibit lower expression levels, more tissue-specific expression, and poor sequence conservation (Derrien et al., 2012; Djebali et al., 2012; Kopp and Mendell, 2018; Fazal et al., 2019). Although often considered as nucleus-enriched, lncRNAs exhibit variety of subcellular localization, which often helps to determine their biological function (Carlevaro-Fita and Johnson, 2019). Finally, circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a special class of RNAs with the 3′ and 5′ ends covalently linked, generally formed by alternative splicing of pre-mRNA (Salzman et al., 2012). They have been proposed to act as miRNAs sponges or even as templates for protein synthesis (Ragan et al., 2019).

Interest in the ncRNAs has been stimulated by the development of high-throughput OMICS technologies. Genome‐, transcriptome‐, translatome- and proteome‐wide measurements by the whole genome sequencing (WGS), RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq), ribosome profiling (Ribo-seq) and mass spectrometry (MS), respectively. In combination, these methods offer the possibility of a systematic analysis of different stages of gene expression (Ori et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2019). RNA-seq data have shown that up to 85% of the genome is transcribed and identified, among others, novel transcript isoforms, transcripts arising from intergenic regions, overlapping transcripts, and transcribed pseudogenes (Consortium, 2012; Djebali et al., 2012; Hangauer et al., 2013). Ribo-seq has shown widespread and pervasive translation on cytosolic RNAs, with surprisingly ~40% lncRNAs being engaged with the ribosome (Ingolia et al., 2009; Kearse and Wilusz, 2017). Reported ribosomal occupancy of RNAs indicated on the one side presence of different protein isoforms and regulatory upstream open reading frames ORFs (uORFs) from the mRNAs, and on the other, more exciting side, new ways of translational regulation and possible micropeptide production from lncRNAs (Morris and Geballe, 2000; Andrews and Rothnagel, 2014). It must be taken into account that the ribosomal occupancy of transcripts need not automatically lead to the production of stable, functional polypeptides, and that further evidence is needed in order to reclassify transcripts as indeed protein-coding (Guttman et al., 2013). MS has proven as a useful tool to inspect the postulated translational event, with developing proteogenomics approaches confirming the presence of some peptides encoded by previously non-coding regions (Slavoff et al., 2013; Fields et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2019). However, in order to omit the possibility of false-positive findings from MS, further functional studies on revealed peptides are needed, and these studies remain sparse.

The complexity of gene expression has in most cases been published on the levels of detection and its functional relevance remains elusive. Still, it has revealed that the distinguishment between mRNAs and ncRNAs is more challenging than initially assumed and that automatic gene annotation systems, although straightforward across large datasets, can sometimes be misleading. Traditional arbitrary ORF cutoff can lead to misclassification of some ncRNAs as mRNAs as they can by chance contain putative ORFs. This is especially true for lncRNAs, such as functionally characterized H19, Xist, Mirg, Gtl2, and KcnqOT1 (Prasanth and Spector, 2007). Some ncRNAs have evolved from the protein-coding genes, and so will keep certain features and homologies to mRNAs (Duret et al., 2006). For example, Xist has evolved into the ncRNA through the process of pseudogenization, during which proto-Xist had lost its protein-coding function and its flanking genes had turned into pseudogenes (Duret et al., 2006). On the contrary, micropeptide-encoding regions may be incorrectly classified as non-coding due to their size (Yeasmin et al., 2018). Next, the absence of ORF conservation does not guarantee an absence of protein-coding potential. Indeed, the majority of micropeptide-encoding regions are not conserved (Ji et al., 2015), suggesting their role in encoding evolutionary young proteins (Ruiz-Orera et al., 2014). Finally, some genes are bifunctional, and its products function independently both as RNAs and proteins. The first report of such a gene was the human Steroid Receptor Activator (SRA) (Lanz et al., 1999; Chooniedass-Kothari et al., 2004). SRA was initially characterized as ncRNA which co-activates steroid hormone receptors (Lanz et al., 1999) and later was revealed to also encode a functional protein (SRAP), which seems to modulate SRA activity (Chooniedass-Kothari et al., 2004).

Emerging discoveries in the ncRNA field have also raised the possibility that some ncRNAs affect mitochondrial biology. Mitochondria are crucial organelles for the integration of several key metabolic processes and the primary powerhouses in the cell (Spinelli and Haigis, 2018). The control of mitochondrial protein homeostasis is unique in that its components have origins in both mitochondria and nucleus (Figure 1). Mitochondria contain their own circular genome (mtDNA). In humans, it is 16,569 bp in length and contains 37 genes- encoding for 2 rRNAs, 22 tRNAs, and 13 proteins of the oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) system (Anderson et al., 1981) (Figure 2). The rRNA coding sequences and all but one protein-coding sequences are separated by tRNAs and deprived of introns. The mtDNA is transcribed entirely from both strands, named heavy (H) or light (L). Transcription is initiated from the two H-strand (HSP1/2) and one L-strand promoter, located in the major non-coding region named “control region”, resulting in long polycistronic transcripts. LSP controls the transcription of eight tRNAs and the ND6 gene. HSP1 transcription produces a transcript containing tRNAPhe, tRNAVal, and the rRNAs, while transcription from HSP2 generates a transcript that spans almost the entire genome (Montoya et al., 1983; Chang and Clayton, 1984). The main proteins controlling the process are the RNA polymerase (POLRMT), two transcription factors (TFAM and TF2BM), transcription elongation factor (TEFM), and transcription termination factor (mTERF1) (Barshad et al., 2018). The “tRNA punctuation” model (Ojala et al., 1981) proposes that individual mRNA, rRNAs, and tRNAs are released from the polycistronic transcripts by the cleavage of tRNAs, which is in humans performed by endonucleases RNase P complex and ELAC2 (Holzmann et al., 2008; Brzezniak et al., 2011). After release, the rRNAs undergo chemical nucleotide modifications before becoming part of mitoribosome, the tRNAs undergo chemical nucleotide modifications, CCA addition at the 3′-end, deadenylation and finally aminoacylation, and the mRNAs get 3′ end polyadenylated (D’Souza and Minczuk, 2018). The half-life of mitochondrial transcripts and the decay of RNA intermediates are mediated by a complex of polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPase) and SUV3 (Borowski et al., 2013). Finally, the mature mRNAs, tRNAs, and the assembled mitoribosome come together in the translation apparatus, for the synthesis of 13 subunits of OXPHOS system.

Figure 1

Figure 2

As mtDNA’s coding capacity is very limited, mitochondria are heavily dependent on the import of about 1,500 nuclear-encoded proteins. Besides, there have been indications that mitochondrial homeostasis is maintained not just through proteins, but also ncRNAs (Figure 1). The presence of housekeeping mitochondrial nuclear-encoded ncRNAs has been postulated for decades. These ncRNAs include tRNAs (tRNALeuUAA, tRNAGlnUUG, tRNAGlnCUG, tRNALysCUU), 5S rRNA, RMRP, and RNase P (Chang and Clayton, 1987a; Chang and Clayton, 1987b; Kiss et al., 1992; Yoshionari et al., 1994; Magalhaes et al., 1998; Puranam and Attardi, 2001; Holzmann et al., 2008). A systematic analysis of mitochondrial transcriptome further strengthened these claims. RNA-seq from 143B cells mitochondria and mitoplasts revealed the presence of several nuclear- and mitochondrial-encoded small RNAs and antisense transcripts (Mercer et al., 2011). Soon afterward, Rackham et al. (2011) observed by RNA-seq on HeLa cells that ncRNAs, excluding rRNAs and tRNAs, make up 15% of the human mitochondrial transcriptome, and identified three lncRNAs transcribed from the mtDNA. Follow-up studies have also reported the presence of ncRNAs encoded by the nuclear DNA, especially miRNAs and lncRNAs, within mitochondria across various cell types and tissues, suggesting that these ncRNAs may play important roles in the mitochondrial homeostasis (Kim et al., 2017b; Jeandard et al., 2019). The summary of the proposed nuclear-encoded ncRNAs is given in Table 1.

Table 1

RNAFunction in cytosol/nucleusProposed function
in mitochondria
Evidence for mitochondrial
localization
Reference
tRNAs (tRNALeuUAA,
tRNAGlnUUG, tRNAGlnCUG,
tRNALysCUU)
TranslationTranslation?RNA-seqRubio et al., 2008
RT-qPCRMercer et al., 2011
Enrichment in mitoplasts compared to crude mitochondriaGowher et al., 2013
5S rRNAComponent of the cytosolic ribosomeTranslation?RT-qPCR and Northern blotYoshionari et al., 1994
Enrichment in mitoplasts compared to crude mitochondriaMagalhaes et al., 1998
Import into isolated mitochondriaEntelis et al., 2001
RNA-seqMercer et al., 2011
Fluorescence microscopyAutour et al., 2018
FISHZelenka et al., 2012
RMRP5.8S rRNA processingRNA metabolism?Enrichment in mitoplasts compared to crude mitochondriaChang and Clayton, 1987a
RT-qPCRWang et al., 2010
RNA-seqMercer et al., 2011
Import into isolated mitochondria, Electron microscopyNoh et al., 2016
RNASE PComponent of RNase PPre-tRNA processing?RT-qPCRBartkiewicz et al., 1989
Enrichment in mitoplasts in comparison to crude mitochondriaPuranam and Attardi, 2001
Import into isolated mitochondriaWang et al., 2010
RNA-seqMercer et al., 2011
hTERCComponent of telomeraseProcessed and transported to cytosol?RT-qPCRCheng et al., 2018
miRNAs and pre-miRNAsmRNA degradation/repression of mRNA translationRepression or activation of translation, repression of transcriptionRNA-seq
miRNA-microarray
Northern blot
Enrichment in mitoplasts in comparison to crude mitochondria
FISH
Immunostaining
Summarized in Table 3
SAMMSONFacilitates p32 targeting to the mitochondria in melanoma cells?RT-qPCRLeucci et al., 2016
FISHVendramin et al., 2018
SRACo-activates steroid hormone receptors?Computational screenBaughman et al., 2009
MALAT1Transcriptional regulatorMitochondrial metabolism?FISHZhao et al., 2019

Nuclear-encoded ncRNAs discovered in mitochondria.

Although detection of ncRNAs in mitochondria paved the way to more extensive research in this field with several examples of ncRNAs functionally described as directly impacting mitochondrial biology, these transcripts are far from being well characterized. It is important to mention that there are (still) many controversies and debates ongoing about the sole existence of ncRNA in mitochondria. The main obstacle presents the technical challenge of truly separating isolated and uncontaminated mitochondria from other membrane vesicles (endoplasmic reticulum (ER), the Golgi apparatus, the endosomes) they are tightly associated within the cell (Vendramin et al., 2017). Therefore, to assess the purity of mitochondria or mitoplasts, ER or other membrane vesicles should be used instead of cytosol or nucleus, which was not always the case. Mitoplasts—rather than mitochondria—should be subjected to RNase treatment before lysis in order to minimize the risk of contamination. Unfortunately, these control steps have not always been performed systematically, so the published data is to date a complicated topic of many debates (Vendramin et al., 2017). Moreover, implementation of high sensitive NGS techniques such as deep sequencing is likely to detect small amounts of contaminants, leading to data misinterpretation. Finally, as this field is still very fresh, many studies miss independent replicates and functional studies are published by one research group.

Despite these controversies, an increasing body of evidence has connected ncRNAs and their machinery with mitochondrial biology. In this review, we focus on classes of ncRNAs described to be functionally related with and/or localized in mitochondria: the housekeeping ncRNAs, miRNAs, and lncRNAs. We also take up the topic of mitochondrial micropeptides, recently discovered to be encoded within regions initially annotated as non-coding. Overall, we summarize knowledge on ncRNAs in mitochondrial biology and discuss their discovery, biosynthesis, import, and function in the context of both health and disease. Finally, we touch their potential as prognosis markers and therapeutic targets.

Housekeeping ncRNAs Localized in Mitochondria

Several tRNAs, 5S rRNA, RMRP, and RNase P present housekeeping ncRNAs whose mitochondrial localization, transport, and function have been discussed for years. For some of them, their interacting RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) have been proposed and associated with mitochondrial import and function (Figure 3, Table 1). However, the exact import mechanism across mitochondrial membranes and the function of these ncRNAs remain unclear. It is important to note that reports of these ncRNAs have been sparse and therefore questionable, so more evidence is needed to confirm/deny their presence and role in mitochondria.

Figure 3

Nuclear-encoded tRNAs have been observed in mitochondria across many species, as most eukaryotes lack some of the essential tRNAs in their mtDNA and must import them (Tarassov et al., 2007; Schneider, 2011). Even though human mtDNA encodes all the necessary tRNAs, published data indicate that they are able to import some of the cytosolic tRNAs through conserved protein machinery. In vitro experiments have shown that the synthetic transcripts of yeast tRNAs could be internalized by the isolated human mitochondria (Kolesnikova et al., 2000; Entelis et al., 2001). Later, nuclear-encoded tRNAs have been detected in mitochondria (Rubio et al., 2008; Mercer et al., 2011), namely tRNALeuUAA, tRNAGlnUUG, and tRNAGlnCUG. Gowher et al. (2013) successfully targeted yeast tRNALysCUU into human mitochondria in vivo, suggesting similarities in the tRNA import between the two species (Figure 3A). The current proposal by Gowher et al. (2013) is that tRNAs are recruited from the cytosol to the mitochondria with the precursor pre-KARS2 (mitochondrial lysyl-tRNA synthetase), helped by ENO2 (glyolitic enlolase). It is still unclear how the tRNA-pre-KARS2 complex then gets internalized into the mitochondrial matrix (Gowher et al., 2013; Kim et al., 2017b). Possible protein import pathway could consist of the translocase of the outer (TOM) and inner (TIM) mitochondrial membrane, as in yeast (Tarassov and Martin, 1996). Although the import of tRNA is yet to be fully understood, it could present a novel concept for therapy for disorders caused by defects in mtDNA-encoded tRNAs. Successful import of tRNA compensating the mutated mtDNA could rescue defects in mitochondrial translation. Rescue of mtDNA mutations by the import of designed tRNAs to mitochondria has been reported in vitro and in vivo (Salinas et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2012a), but more recent reports are missing.

Several studies have suggested that 5S rRNA is imported to the mammalian mitochondria (Yoshionari et al., 1994; Magalhaes et al., 1998). Entelis et al. (2001) suggested that mitochondrial 5S rRNA might substitute for its lost counterpart and be part of mitoribosome large subunit. Smirnov et al. (2008) proposed a model of mitochondrial 5S rRNA import (Figure 3B), starting with the recognition and transport of 5S rRNA from the nucleus to the cytoplasm by TFIIIA (Ciganda and Williams, 2011). In the cytosol, 5S rRNA was proposed to interact with pre-MRPL18 (precursor of mitochondrial ribosomal protein L18). This interaction might induce a conformational change in 5S rRNA that makes it recognized and bound by the mitochondrial enzyme Rhodanese, which helps it possibly translocate into mitochondria through a yet unknown mechanism. In the matrix 5S rRNA was proposed to associate with the mature MRPL18 and with mitoribosomes, affecting mitochondrial translation efficiency (Smirnov et al., 2010; Smirnov et al., 2011). However, as cryo-electron microscopy did not detect 5S rRNA within the mammalian mitoribosome 5S rRNA (Greber et al., 2015), its possible function in mitochondria remains enigmatic.

RMRP is a part of the RNase MRP, a ribonucleoprotein complex whose function has been discussed for decades. In the nucleus, it is involved in the pre-rRNA processing (Schmitt and Clayton, 1993; Chu et al., 1994; Goldfarb and Cech, 2017). In mitochondria, it was postulated to cleave RNA complementary to the light chain near the D-loop sites that mark the transition from RNA to DNA synthesis (Chang and Clayton, 1987b; Lee and Clayton, 1997). Three RNA-binding proteins (RBPs- HuR, PNPase, and GRSF1) have been implicated in the RMRP transport and role in mitochondria (Figure 3C). In the nucleus, RMRP is bound to HuR, which promotes its export to the cytosol in a CRM1-dependent manner (Noh et al., 2016). The exported RMRP might be then targeted into the mitochondrial intermembrane space through yet unknown mechanisms where PNPase was suggested to enable its import into the matrix (Wang et al., 2012b), after which its abundance in the matrix was reported to be increased through the interaction with GRSF1 (Noh et al., 2016). However, recent studies cast a shadow on the role of RMRP complex in mitochondria. Agaronyan et al. (2015) have shown that the RNA primer formation is a result of a premature arrest of the mitochondrial RNA polymerase after a G-quadruplex. Moreover, only the 3′ half (~130 nt) of RMRP could be found in mitochondria, indicating a processing that would result in a loss of catalytic activity (Esakova and Krasilnikov, 2010). These reports indicate that RMRP unlikely acts as an endonuclease in mitochondria. However, its interaction with GRSF1, an important component of the RNA granules (Antonicka et al., 2013; Jourdain et al., 2013), might still make it involved in the RNA metabolism.

RNase P processes the 5′ leader of precursor tRNA, which is a critical step of processing mitochondrial polycistronic transcripts (Ojala et al., 1981; Rackham et al., 2016). Two types of RNase P are known: ribonucleoproteins RNases P containing RNase P and protein-only RNases P (PRORP) (Lechner et al., 2015; Klemm et al., 2016). In the majority of species, including humans, it is assumed that the ribonucleoprotein RNase P acts in the nucleus and PRORP in mitochondria (Holzmann et al., 2008; Lechner et al., 2015). Strengthening this assumption, studies have reported that mammalian mitochondrial RNAse P does not require the catalytic RNA component for catalysis (Rossmanith et al., 1995; Holzmann et al., 2008). Nevertheless, RNase P was partially purified from HeLa cells mitochondria. Detected “mtRNase P”, together with the observed sensitivity of RNAse P to the nuclease treatment, suggested that RNAse P acts as a ribonucleoprotein also in mitochondria (Doersen et al., 1985). In addition, several groups indicated that mtRNase P is imported into the mitochondrial matrix through interaction with PNPase (Wang et al., 2010; Mercer et al., 2011; Noh et al., 2016) (Figure 3D). However, as so far functional RNase P ribonucleoprotein has not been reported in mitochondria, the existence of mtRNase P remains controversial (Jeandard et al., 2019).

hTERC is the RNA component of the human telomerase, where it serves as a sequence template for the telomere replication (Gall, 1990). As its sequence contains a region similar to an RMRP and RNase P short stem-loop that was proposed to enable their entry into mitochondria (Wang et al., 2010), hTERC was also proposed to be mitochondria-localized (Cheng et al., 2018). It was detected by the RT-PCR in purified mitoplasts, but as as a shorter, 195 nt-long transcript, which was termed TERC-53. Zheng et al. (2019) demonstrated that TERC-53 is mostly localized in the cytosol, where it regulates cellular senescence and is involved in cognition decline in mice hippocampus without affecting telomerase activity or mitochondrial functions. Having this in mind, the authors hypothesized that TERC-53 is exported from the mitochondria back to the cytosol (Cheng et al., 2018; Zheng et al., 2019). However, this hypothesis indicates hTERC processing occurring within the mitochondria, which has so far not been reported.

microRNAs

Vertebrate genomes contain thousands of miRNAs: according to MiRBase catalog, with the human genome containing 2,654 mature sequences (Kozomara et al., 2019). The biogenesis and biological functions of miRNAs have been widely studied in eukaryotic cells (Bartel, 2009) (Figure 4). In short, miRNAs are transcribed from the intergenic regions or in antisense orientation to coding regions as the primary miRNA transcript (pri-miRNA). pri-miRNA is processed in the nucleus by Drosha and/or DiGeorge syndrome chromosomal region 8 (DGCR8). This results in premature miRNA (pre-miRNA) which is then bound by exportin 5 (XPO5). XPO5, along with RanGTP, enables the export of the pre-miRNA through the nuclear pore into the cytosol. There RNase Dicer (DICER1 in humans) cleaves it, producing mature double-stranded miRNA. From two strands, the “passenger strand” undergoes RNA degradation while the remaining “guide strand” associates with argonaute 2 (AGO2) and becomes part of a multiprotein RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) (Han et al., 2006). The main function of miRNA within RISC is post-transcriptional gene regulation by promoting mRNA degradation or translational repression by sequence-specific binding to the target mRNA. mRNA degradation is achieved via AGO2 (Carthew and Sontheimer, 2009; Chekulaeva and Filipowicz, 2009). Translational control is mediated by GW182 (Czech and Hannon, 2011; Iwakawa and Tomari, 2015). Moreover, miRNAs have also been implicated in some non-canonical functions, such as direct transcription and chromatin state regulation in the nucleus, and even translational promotion (Vasudevan, 2012; Yao et al., 2019). Each miRNA can target multiple genes, enabling them to regulate the expression of over 60% of the human genes and therefore moderate any part of cellular biology (Bartel, 2009; Friedman et al., 2009). Focusing on mitochondria, based on their localization and genetic origin, three different classes of mitochondria-related miRNAs can be distinguished (1) cytoplasmic, nuclear-encoded miRNAs targeting mitochondria-related transcripts; (2) mitochondrial, nuclear-encoded miRNAs; and (3) mitochondrial, mtDNA-encoded miRNAs (Bandiera et al., 2013) (Figure 4). The two latter classes, termed mitomiRs, are yet to be functionally deciphered.

Figure 4

Cytoplasmic miRNAs With Impact on Mitochondria

As about 1,500 nuclear-encoded proteins are imported into mitochondria and involved in diverse mitochondrial functions, many miRNAs have been described as directly targeting their mRNAs in the cytoplasm. By downregulating transcripts encoding for proteins involved in a variety of mitochondrial processes, reported miRNAs can indirectly influence mitochondrial biology and homeostasis. A summary of miRNAs reported to target nuclear-encoded mitochondrial transcripts is given in Table 2.

Table 2

miRNATargetReference
(A) TCA cycle
miR-148aCSTibiche and Wang, 2008
miR-148bCSTibiche and Wang, 2008
miR-299-5pCSTibiche and Wang, 2008
miR-19a-3pCSTibiche and Wang, 2008
miR-19b-3pCSTibiche and Wang, 2008
miR-122aCSTibiche and Wang, 2008
miR-421CSTibiche and Wang, 2008
miR-494CSTibiche and Wang, 2008
miR-183IDH2Vohwinkel et al., 2011
miR-743aMDH2Shi and Gibson, 2011
miRNA-26aPDHXChen et al., 2014
miR-210SDHDPuissegur et al., 2011
miR-147bSDHDZhang et al., 2019
miR-124SUCLG2Wang and Wang, 2006
(B) OXPHOS
miR-101-3pATP5BZheng et al., 2011
miR-127-5pATP5BWillers et al., 2012
miR-338-5pATP5G1Aschrafi et al., 2012
mitomiR-378ATP6Jagannathan et al., 2015
miR-181cCOX1Das et al., 2014
miR-338COX4Aschrafi et al., 2008
miR-34aCYCBukeirat et al., 2016
miR-210-5pISCU, COX10Chan et al., 2009; Chen et al., 2010
miR-210SDHDPuissegur et al., 2011
miR-147bSDHDZhang et al., 2019
miR-663UQCC2Carden et al., 2017
(C) Fatty acid metabolism
miR-204-5pACACBCivelek et al., 2013
miR-224-5pACSL4Peng et al., 2013
miR-122AldoaEsau et al., 2006
miR-212CACTSoni et al., 2014
miR-132CACTSoni et al., 2014
miR-370CPT1AIliopoulos et al., 2010
miR-33bCPT1ARottiers and Naar, 2012
miR-378, miR-378*CRATCarrer et al., 2012
miR-33aCROTGerin et al., 2010
miR-107PANKWilfred et al., 2007
miR-103PANKWilfred et al., 2007
miR-29a-3pPPARδKurtz et al., 2014
miR-199a-5bPPARδel Azzouzi et al., 2013
(D) Aminoacid metabolism
miR-29bDBTMersey et al., 2005
miR-23a-3pGLSGao et al., 2009
miR-23b-3pGLSGao et al., 2009
miR-193bSHMT2Leivonen et al., 2011
(E) Nucleotide metabolism
miR-502DHODHZhai et al., 2013
miR-940MTHFD2Xu et al., 2019
miR-149MTHFRWu C. et al., 2013
miR-125MTHFRStone et al., 2011
miR-22MTHFRStone et al., 2011
(F) Mitochondrial transport
miR-15bArl2Nishi et al., 2010
miR-16Arl2Nishi et al., 2010
miR-195Arl2Nishi et al., 2010
miR-424Arl2Nishi et al., 2010
miR-25Mitochondrial calcium uniporterMarchi et al., 2013
miR-155SLC25A19Kim et al., 2015
miR-132SLC25A20Soni et al., 2014
miR-212SLC25A20Soni et al., 2014
miR-184Slc25a22Morita et al., 2013
miR-141Slc25a3Baseler et al., 2012
(G) Mitochondrial dynamics
miR-30a-5pDRP1Li et al., 2010
miR-483-5pFis1Fan et al., 2015
miR-484Fis1Wang K. et al., 2012
miR-499Fnip1, Calcinurinvan Rooij et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2011; Liu L. et al., 2016
miR-9/9*GTPBP3, MTO1, TRMUMeseguer et al., 2015
miR-27MFFTak et al., 2014
miR-761MFFLong et al., 2013
miR-593MFFFan et al., 2015
miR-200a-3pMFFLee et al., 2017
miR-140MFN1Guan et al., 2016
miR-19bMFN1Li X. et al., 2014; Joshi et al., 2016
miR-382-5pMFN1, MFN2, OPA, SIRT1, PGC1-αDahlmans et al., 2019
miR-214MFN2Bucha et al., 2015
miR-106aMFN2Zhang et al., 2016
miR-195MFN2Zhou et al., 2016
miR-30 familyP53Li et al., 2010
miR-149PARP-2Mohamed et al., 2014
miR-23aPGC1-αRussell et al., 2013
miR-696PGC1-αAoi et al., 2010
miR-27PHBKang et al., 2013
miR-494TFAMYamamoto et al., 2012
miR-23b-5pTFAMJiang et al., 2013
miR-590-3pTFAMWu et al., 2016
miR-155-5pTFAMQuinones-Lombrana and Blanco, 2015
miR-200aTFAMYao et al., 2014
miR-26UCP1Karbiener et al., 2014
miR-15aUCP2Sun et al., 2011
miR-133aUCP2Chen et al., 2009
miR-7VDAC1Chaudhuri et al., 2016
(H) Autophagy, mitophagy and ROS
miR-146aBcl-2Rippo et al., 2014
miR-181aBcl-2Rippo et al., 2014
miR-195Bcl-2Singh and Saini, 2012
miR-24-2Bcl-2Singh and Saini, 2012
miR-365-2Bcl-2Singh and Saini, 2012
miR-497Bcl-2Yadav et al., 2011
miR-146Bcl-2Zhang et al., 2017
miR-15aBcl-2 and Mcl-1Cimmino et al., 2005
miR-16Bcl-2 and Mcl-1Cimmino et al., 2005
miR-9BCL2L11Li Y. et al., 2014
miR-30aBecn-1Zhu et al., 2009
miR-17-92BimMolitoris et al., 2011
miR-92aBimTsuchida et al., 2011
miR-145BNIP3Du et al., 2017
miR-101Mcl-1Frankel et al., 2011
miR-29Mcl-1Mott et al., 2007
miR-181Mcl-1, Bcl-2Ouyang et al., 2012
miR-137NIX, FUNDC1Li W. et al., 2014
miR-504P53Hu et al., 2010
miR-125bP53, BakLe et al., 2009; Sun et al., 2013
miR-21PTENMeng et al., 2007; Zhang et al., 2010
miR-128SIRT1Adlakha et al., 2013
miR-335SOD2, TXNRD2Bai et al., 2011;
miR-34aSOD2, TXNRD2, Bcl-2, SIRT1Yamakuchi et al., 2008; Bai et al., 2011; Rippo et al., 2014
miR-17*SOD2, TXNRD2, GPX2Xu et al., 2010

miRNAs and their target genes across mitochondrial functions.

TCA Cycle

The tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle is a central pathway in the metabolism of sugars, lipids, and amino acids. Several miRNAs have been described to directly target transcripts of enzymes involved in its chemical reactions (Figure 5, Table 2A). For example, miR-26a targets subunit X of pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH). As PDH catalyzes a crucial reaction before acetyl-coA enters the TCA cycle, its repression is leading to the decreased levels of acetyl-coA and the accumulation of pyruvate (Chen et al., 2014). In cancer research, miRNAs have been discovered to have a role in developing drug tolerance. Altered miR-147b initiates a reversible state of tolerance to osimertinib in lung cancer cells by binding SDHD (Zhang et al., 2019). Pretreatment with a miR-147b inhibitor delayed osimertinib-associated drug tolerance, providing a promising target for preventing tumor relapse (Zhang et al., 2019).

Figure 5

Oxidative Phosphorylation System (OXPHOS)

OXPHOS system is composed of five protein complexes in the inner mitochondrial membrane that through oxidoreductase reactions generate a proton gradient, ultimately driving ATP synthesis. Several miRNAs have been described as directly targeting the OXPHOS subunits or assembly factors (Figure 6, Table 2B). It was shown that miR-663 positively regulates OXPHOS subunit and assembly factor protein levels by direct stabilization of complex III assembly factor UQCC2 (Carden et al., 2017). In breast cancer cell lines, mitochondrial dysfunction downregulates miR-663 through hypermethylation of its promoter, which leads to decreasing OXPHOS proteins levels and enzymatic activity and stability of supercomplexes, which promotes tumorigenesis (Carden et al., 2017).

Figure 6

Fatty Acid Metabolism

Fatty acid metabolism includes catabolic and anabolic processes that involve triglycerides, phospholipids, steroid hormones, and ketone bodies. Several miRNAs have been described as regulators of these processes (Table 2C). As fatty acid oxidation defects have been linked to the obesity and the development of insulin resistance (Kusunoki et al., 2006), these miRNAs could serve as potential therapeutic targets. As an example, PPARGC1B encodes for PGC-1β, a transcriptional coactivator that promotes mitochondrial biogenesis. Interestingly, this locus can also encode for miR-378 and miR-378*, which counterbalance the effect of PGC1-β by targeting carnitine-O-acetyltransferase (CRAT) (Carrer et al., 2012). miR-378/378* knockout (KO) mice showed significantly greater mitochondrial function and oxidative capacity.

Amino Acid Metabolism

The main steps of breakdown and synthesis of amino acids occur in mitochondria. Several miRNAs have been connected to amino acid metabolism (Table 2D). Most of the published work is focused on the regulation of glutaminase (GLS), which catalyzes the conversion of glutamine to glutamate. miR-23a and miR-23b participate in targeting glutaminase and thereby contribute to the mitochondrial amino acid metabolism (Gao et al., 2009).

Nucleotide Metabolism

Parts of the nucleotide and one-carbon metabolism are occurring in mitochondria. Various miRNAs can influence these processes (Desler et al., 2010) (Table 2E). For example, miR-149, miR-125, and miR-22 have been found to target MTHFR (Stone et al., 2011; Wu C. et al., 2013).

Mitochondrial Transport

Many mitochondrial transporter and carrier proteins enable the import and export of molecules across the mitochondrial membranes. By targeting the transcripts encoding for these proteins, miRNAs are able to influence mitochondrial biology (Table 2F). It has been shown that the miR-15/16 cluster, composed of miR-15b, miR-16, miR-195, and miR-424, target Arl2 (Nishi et al., 2010).

Mitochondrial Dynamics

Mitochondria are constantly changing their size, shape, and number to maximize the capacity for OXPHOS and answer the cell needs. This is achieved through the coordinated processes of biogenesis, fission, and fusion (Tilokani et al., 2018). Several miRNAs have been shown to be involved in the regulation of mitochondrial dynamics by directly or indirectly targeting these key factors (Figure 7, Table 2G). miR-149 indirectly promotes mitochondrial biogenesis by inhibiting PARP-2, which increases the NAD+ levels and SIRT-1 activity, finally leading to the increased activity of PGC-1α, the master regulator of mitochondrial biogenesis. Skeletal muscles from a high fat diet-fed obese mice have low levels of miR-149 and present with mitochondrial dysfunction, which might be due to miR-149-induced SIRT-1/PGC-1α pathway dysregulation. Noteworthy, miRNAs have been implicated in the mitochondria-mediated transition of skeletal muscle fiber types. miR-499 directly targets Fnip1, a negative regulator of AMPK, a known activator of PGC-1 α, and thereby triggers a muscle mitochondrial oxidative metabolism program (Liu L. et al., 2016). The miR-30 family, highly expressed in heart, was reported to regulate mitochondria fission and apoptosis by directly targeting p53, a transcriptional activator of Drp1 (Li et al., 2010). In addition, Drp1 is indirectly regulated by miR-499, which targets Drp1 activator dephosphatase calcinurin (van Rooij et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2011). Finally, miR-499 transcription is regulated by p53 on the transcript level (Wang et al., 2011).

Figure 7

MELAS syndrome is caused by mutations in mtDNA affecting tRNALeuUUR. One of the phenotypes of MELAS patients is the increased oxidative stress. In addition, mutant tRNAsLeuUUR have reduced levels of the taurine-containing chemical modification at the wobble uridine (U34). Meseguer et al. (2015) reported that elevated oxidative stress in mutant cells leads to induction of miRNA-9/9*, which then act as post-transcriptional repressors of the tRNA-modification enzymes GTPBP3, MTO1, and TRMU. Downregulation of these enzymes disrupts the chemical modification at U34 of non-mutant tRNAs and contributes to mitochondrial dysfunction (Meseguer et al., 2015).

Autophagy, Mitophagy, and Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) Production

Autophagy is a catabolic process which prevents cell damage and promotes the cell survival by degrading and/or recycling dysfunctional components during cellular stress (Dikic and Elazar, 2018). Mitophagy is a form of autophagy that removes faulty or superfluous mitochondria, regulating their number to match the cellular needs (Pickles et al., 2018). miRNAs are also involved in the mitochondria-mediated apoptosis (Figure 7, Table 2H). Moreover, they are frequently dysregulated in human cancers, where they may function as potent oncogenes or tumor suppressors (Peng and Croce, 2016). Since mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the hallmarks of cancer (Wallace, 2012), miRNAs targeting apoptosis-related transcripts could be important in the development of cancer therapies. miR-101 (Frankel et al., 2011), miR-30a (Zhu et al., 2009), miR-15a, and miR-16 (Cimmino et al., 2005) have been reported to target oncogenic Bcl-2 and Mcl-1, and are frequently deleted or decreased in chronic lymphocytic leukemia. miR-21 levels have been shown to be significantly increased, leading to reduced expression of PTEN in human lung and hepatocellular carcinomas (Meng et al., 2007; Zhang et al., 2010).

mitomiRs

MitomiRs are defined as miRNAs with mitochondrial localization (Bandiera et al., 2011). The majority of mitomiRs were suggested to originate from the nuclear genome, but also there were reports of mtDNA-encoded miRNAs. Different experimental approaches across mammalian tissues and cell lines indicated the mitochondrial presence of miRNAs, but also proteins involved in miRNAs biogenesis and function, suggesting miRNAs import, transcription, and/or processing and function within mitochondria themselves. Intriguingly, mitomiRs have some unique features which distinguish them from conventional cytosolic miRNAs (Bandiera et al., 2011; Barrey et al., 2011). Most of the nuclear-encoded mitomiRs loci are located within mitochondrial gene clusters or close to mitochondrial genes, and their transcriptions are often coregulated (Baskerville and Bartel, 2005; Bandiera et al., 2011). Their size slightly differs (between 17 and 25 nt instead of the average 22 nt), and they contain short 3′ overhangs, stem-loop secondary structures, and unique thermodynamic features (Vendramin et al., 2017). They lack 5′cap and most were predicted in silico to target multiple mtDNA sites. It has thus been speculated that at least some of these features could present a signal for entry into mitochondria (Bandiera et al., 2011; Barrey et al., 2011).

mitomiRs have been found via different approaches (from miRNA microarray and RT-qPCR to deep sRNA-sequencing) and across various tissues and organisms. To begin with, sequence analysis of cDNA libraries from mice mitochondrial RNA identified clones mapping to four nuclear-encoded miRNAs and three regions within the D-loop (Lung et al., 2006). Other reports on miRNAs localized in mammalian mitochondria have expanded in the past decade (Kren et al., 2009; Bandiera et al., 2011; Barrey et al., 2011; Mercer et al., 2011; Sripada et al., 2012; Jagannathan et al., 2015), as summarized in Table 3. For example, Kren et al. (2009) reported by miRNA microarray 15 nuclear-encoded miRNAs from highly purified rat liver mitochondria and further strengthened their findings with Northern blot and stem-loop RT-qPCR analyses. Barrey et al. (2011)in silico predicted 33 pre-miRNAs and 25 miRNAs targeting mtDNA and experimentally confirmed localization of pre-mir302a, let-7b, and mir-365 to isolated mitochondria from the human myotubes. Mercer et al. (2011) detected 31 mitochondria-encoded small RNAs in human 143B mitoplasts by sRNA-seq, the majority (84%) derived from mt-tRNA genes.

Table 3

mitomiRTissueMethod of detectionReference
Mt-1; Mt-2; Mt-3; Mt-4; let7f-;, let-7g; 122a; 101bMouse liver and kidneycDNA libraryLung et al., 2006
130a; 130b; 140; 290; 320; 494; 671; 202; 705; 709; 721; 761; 763; 198; 765Rat livermiRNA microarray, Northern blot, RT-qPCRKren et al., 2009
690; 122; 451; 720; let-7f; let-7b; let-7g; 29a; 26a; 192; 101; 22; 805; 29c; 7a; 98; 26b; 30b; 7c; 709Mouse livermiRNA microarray, RT-qPCRBian et al., 2010
1973; 1275; 494; 513a-5p; 1246; 328; 1908; 1972; 1974;638; 1977;1978;1201HeLa cellsmiRNA microarray, RT-qPCRBandiera et al., 2011
pre-mir302a; pre-let-7b; 365; 720; 133b; 1974; 24; 133a; 125a-5p; 1979; 103; 125b; 103; 221; 23a; let-7b; 423-3p; 106a; 23b; 92a; 193b; 93; 532-3p; 20a; 149; 181a; 503; 210; 107; 574-3p; 34a; let-7g; miRPlus-D1033; 19b; 197; 324-3p; 127-3p; 324-5p; 484; 151-5p; 486-5p; 542-5p; 199a-5p; 501-3p; 675*; 134; 490-3p; 598Human myotubesFISH, RT-qPCRBarrey et al., 2011
103-3p; 146a-5p; 16-5p143B cellssRNA-seqMercer et al., 2011
181c-5pRat cardiac myocytesmiRNA microarray, immunostaining, RT-qPCRDas et al., 2012
107; 181a-5p; 221-5p; 320a; let-7b; let-7gHEK293 and HeLa cellssRNA-seq, RT-qPCRSripada et al., 2012
1C2C12 cellsCLIP-seq, miRACE, RT-qPCRZhang et al., 2014
143-3p; 378a-3p; 146a-5p; 181c-5p; 501-3143B and 206 ρ° cellssRNA-seq, RT-qPCRDasgupta et al., 2015
let-7d-5p; let-7b-5p; let-7c-5p; let-7f-5p; mghv-M1-7-3p; 1187; 1224-5p; 125a-3p; 125b-5p; 126-3p; 130a-5p; 133a-3p; 133a-5p; 133b; 135a-1-3p; 139-3p; 1-3p;144-3p; 149-3p; 149-5p; 188-5p; 1894-3p; 1895; 1897-5p; 1904; 1934-3p; 1982-5p; 211-3p; 2137; 21a-5p; 22-3p; 23a-3p; 23b-3p; 24-3p; 26a-5p; 27a-3p; 27b-3p; 2861; 29a-3p; 29b-3p; 29c-3p; 3072-3p; 3081-5p; 3082-5p; 3085-3p; 3092-3p; 3095-3p; 3098-5p; 30a-5p; 30c-1-3p; 30d-5p; 30e-5p; 3102-5p; 3102-5p.2-5p; 3470a; 378a-5p; 451a; 466b-3p; 466i-5p; 483-5p; 486b; 494-3p; 497-5p; 574-5p; 652-5p; 671-5p; 680; 705; 709; 712-5p; 721; 877-3p; 99a-5pMouse heart, HL-1 cellsMicroarray, RT-qPCR, CLIP-seq, sRNA-seqJagannathan et al., 2015
142-5p; 142-3p; 146; 150aRat hippocampus, rat astrocytesRT-qPCRWang et al., 2015a
Has-mit-miR-1; Has-mit-miR-2; Has-mit-miR-3; Has-mit-miR-4; Has-mit-miR-5; Has-mit-miR-6Human skeletal muscle myoblastsNorthern blot, RT-qPCRShinde and Bhadra, 2015
pre-miR-338Rat SCG neuronsqRT-PCR, co-localisationVargas et al., 2016
371a-5p; 1246; 664b-3p; 513b; 4271; 2392; 4462; 1290; 4449; 3934-5p1268aTSCCsmiRNA microarray, RT-qPCRFan et al., 2019

miRNAs detected in mitochondria, mitomiRs.

The presence of miRNA-associated proteins in the mitochondria was only recently recognized (summarized in Table 4). Wang et al. (2015a) and Vargas et al. (2016) reported Dicer in the rat brain, but it was reported as absent in the mitochondria isolated from the heart (Chen et al., 2010; Das et al., 2012; Jagannathan et al., 2015). So far, only one colocalization of pre-miR-338 and Dicer in rat brain mitochondria has been published (Vargas et al., 2016). If indeed true, the presence of Dicer could indicate that mature miRNA are formed from the precursors in mitochondria, from where they could directly affect the mitochondrial transcripts or even be exported to act in the cytosol (Bienertova-Vasku et al., 2013). However, mitochondrial localization of Dicer, Drosha, and DGCR8 has not yet been validated by other groups. Several studies have documented the presence of RNA-interference components, most notably AGO2, in the mitochondria, implying the functional importance of mitomiRs. As an example, Ago2 immunoprecipitated with miRNA from mitochondria in rat cardiac myocytes (Das et al., 2012). In addition, FXR1, a postulated RISC subunit, has been found together with Ago2 in the mitochondrial matrix of mouse cardiomyocytes (Jagannathan et al., 2015). However, an important factor for miRNA-mediated translational repression- GW182 has not been detected in any studies (Ro et al., 2013; Zhang et al., 2014). Finally, the presence of Dicer and AGO2 in mitochondria need not necessarily imply processing and function of mitomiRs, as these enzymes are involved also in other, miRNA-independent, processes (Janowski et al., 2006; Song and Rossi, 2017).

Table 4

ProteinTissueMethod of detectionReference
DICERRat hippocampusWestern blot, immunoprecipitationWang et al., 2015a
Rat total brain, SCG neuronsWestern blot,
immunostaining
Vargas et al., 2016
AGO2Mouse liverWestern blotBian et al., 2010
HeLa cellsWestern blot,
immunostaining, immunoprecipitation
Bandiera et al., 2011
Rat cardiac myocytesImmunoprecipitationDas et al., 2012
HeLa cellsImmunostainingSripada et al., 2012
C2C12 cellsWestern blot, immunoprecipitationZhang et al., 2014
143B and 206 ρ° cellsWestern blotDasgupta et al., 2015
Mouse cardiomyocytes, HL-1 cellsWestern blot, immunoprecipitationJagannathan et al., 2015
Rat hippocampusWestern blot, immunoprecipitationWang et al., 2015a
TSCCWestern blotFan et al., 2019
AGO3HEK293 cellsImmunostainingSripada et al., 2012
FXR1Mouse cardiomyocytesWestern blot, immunoprecipitationJagannathan et al., 2015

miRNA biogenesis and RISC proteins detected in mitochondria.

Although protein transport across mitochondrial membranes is well described, the translocases for RNA transport across mitochondrial membranes remain speculative. Several mechanisms of miRNAs transport into the mitochondria have been proposed. As shown in Figure 8, the potential players are AGO2, processing bodies (P-bodies), polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPase) and voltage-gated ion channels (VDAC). AGO2 has been proposed as an important factor in the subcellular localization of miRNAs. Zhang et al. (2014) have shown an association of miR-1 with Ago2 in mitochondria and proposed their mechanism of action. At the baseline, miR-1 is found in the cytoplasm within RISC with 3′UTR of HDAC4. However, during myogenesis, GW182 detaches and HDAC4 loses 5′cap and poly(A) tail, suggesting that loss of GW182 alone or in combination with changes in HDAC4 facilitates the transport of Ago2:miR-1 into mitochondria (Figure 8A). Still, it remains unclear if AGO2 and miRNA translocate together as a complex (Figure 8B) or separately (Figure 8C) into the mitochondria and by which mechanism. Another hypothesis involves P-bodies, as they interact with mitochondria and can regulate mRNA decay, mRNA storage, and possibly miRNA import into different cellular compartments (Huang et al., 2011; Bandiera et al., 2013; Luo et al., 2018). Activation of several pathways and phosphorylation at the Ago2 Ser387 site has been shown to separate the Ago2/miRNA complex from the RISC and activate its intake into the P-body (Huang et al., 2011; McKenzie et al., 2016) (Figure 8D). As GW182 is also a P-body subunit (Liu et al., 2005), it might still have significance for the Ago2-miRNA import. PNPase is another candidate, as it has already been postulated to recognize specific structures of the housekeeping ncRNAs and help RNA fold properly to migrate through the mitochondrial membranes and return to its original conformation when they arrive in the mitochondrial matrix (Wang et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2012a) (Figure 8E). Several pre-miRNAs share the specific stem-loop structure that PNPase could recognize and enable import (Wang et al., 2010; Barrey et al., 2011; Lin et al., 2012). PNPase levels were reported to affect mitomiR-378 mitochondrial localization and co-immunoprecipitation showed Ago2 association with PNPase, suggesting that PNPase can bind to the miRNA within the complex with Ago2 (Shepherd et al., 2017). Transport across mitochondrial membranes could occur via TOM/TIM complexes (Figure 8F). Still, additional studies are needed to prove whether and how Ago2 can go through such small pores, even if facilitated by PNPase. Finally, it has been demonstrated that VDAC, the most abundant outer mitochondrial membrane protein in plants, could help transport of tRNAs across the outer mitochondrial membrane in plant cells (Salinas et al., 2006) (Figure 8G). This mechanism is yet to be tested in the animal systems.

Figure 8

Although many have been detected, very few mitomiRs were functionally described to impact mitochondria (Baradan et al., 2017). Das et al. (2012) found miR-181c, Ago2, and COX1 in mitochondrial co-immunoprecipitate, suggesting that mature miR-181c could translocate to mitochondria and together with Ago2 repress the translation of this mitochondrial transcript. Overexpression of miR-181c seems to lead to a loss of COX1 and an increase COX2 and COX3, resulting in complex IV remodeling. miR-378 has been proposed to bind ATP6 in mitochondria in the presence of Ago2 and FXR1, leading to a decrease of ATP6 in mouse type 1 diabetic heart (Jagannathan et al., 2015). miR-1, specifically induced during myogenesis, is able to promote translation of COX1 and ND1 within Ago2-miRNA complex in mitochondria, while, on the contrary, suppressing its target transcripts in the cytosol (Zhang et al., 2014). However, the binding of miR-1 to mitochondrial transcripts has been suggested only by Ago2 CLIP experiments, and to date, miR‐1 is the only example of this non-canonical mitomiR function. Nevertheless, as many mitochondrial diseases are caused by defects in mitochondrial translation (Pearce et al., 2013), the upregulation of mitochondrial translation via miRNAs may be a new therapeutic route for these diseases which currently have no cure and few treatment options. Finally, a recent report reveals the role of mitomiRs in mitochondrial transcriptional regulation. mitomiR-2392, together with Ago2, was reported to recognize target sequences in the H-strand and partially inhibit polycistronic mtDNA transcription in a tongue squamous cell carcinoma (TSCC) cells, leading to downregulation of oxidative phosphorylation and upregulation of glycolysis (Fan et al., 2019).

To summarize, the identification of a miRNA inside mitochondria has, without a doubt, raised the interest in studying mitomiRs. However, mitomiRs are far from being well recognized. It is initially crucial to prevent any contamination during mitochondrial/mitoplast isolation to certain their mitochondrial localization. Furthermore, the mechanisms of their import, including interaction factors and important sequence features, and functions in mitochondria are yet to be elucidated. One should be aware that mitomiRs reported across various cell types and species show a very poor overlap. This could reflect species and cell type-specific expression of mitomiRs (Geiger and Dalgaard, 2017). On the other hand, such low reproducibility raises urgent questions regarding the techniques used in the published studies (Vendramin et al., 2017). Although several hypotheses concerning miRNA import into mitochondria have been proposed, it remains without convincing experimental validation. Finally, mitomiRs mode of action in mitochondria is largely enigmatic. On the one hand, only AGO2 from RISC has been proposed to reside in the mitochondria and on the other hand, mitochondrial mRNAs contain no or very small 3′ UTRs, questioning if they can function as canonical miRNAs.

Long Non-Coding RNAs

The number of lncRNA genes in mammals varies broadly between different sources, from less than 20,000 to more than 100,000 in humans (Zhao et al., 2016; Kopp and Mendell, 2018). According to noncode.org, they are encompassing ∼144 000 loci in humans (Zhao et al., 2016). Intriguingly, although nucleus-enriched, lncRNAs have been observed in different cell compartments, including mitochondria (Dong et al., 2017). Their biological activities are highly influenced by their localization in the cell (Mercer and Mattick, 2013; Fatica and Bozzoni, 2014). lncRNAs have been suggested to regulate cellular biology via transcriptional regulation, organization of nuclear domains, and bindings to proteins or other RNAs (Ulitsky and Bartel, 2013; Kopp and Mendell, 2018). It is therefore not surprising that their disruption has been associated with different diseases (Briggs et al., 2015; Huarte, 2015; Uchida and Dimmeler, 2015).

lncRNAs can be functionally classified into those that act in cis, and those that act in trans (Kopp and Mendell, 2018). In cis, the lncRNA locus can regulate chromatin or gene expression of nearbye genes in at least three potential mechanisms: (1) DNA elements within the lncRNA promoter or locus carry the regulatory function, which is not related to the lncRNA or its production; (2) the act of transcription and/or splicing of the lncRNA affects nearby genes, irrespective of the transcribed lncRNA sequence; and (3) the lncRNA transcript alone affects the nearby genes, most commonly leading to the establishment of repressive or activating chromatin states. Some lncRNAs function in trans throughout the cell in, again, at least three potential mechanisms: (1) lncRNAs affect chromatin states and gene expression of distant genetic regions, (2) lncRNAs take part in the nuclear structure and organization (for example, as parts of speckles and paraspeckles), and (3) lncRNAs interact with proteins and/or other RNA molecules and modulate their expression and function (Lee, 2012; Rinn and Chang, 2012). Moreover, some transcripts initially annotated as lncRNAs are not non-coding, but actually encoding for biologically active micropeptides (Anderson et al., 2015; Matsumoto et al., 2017; Kopp and Mendell, 2018).

Over twenty lncRNAs have been described so far to affect the mitochondrial biology directly or indirectly. Some act in the cytosol, by regulating mitochondria-associated genes, often in interaction with miRNA, thus creating a complex mRNA-ncRNA regulation network. Other nuclear-encoded lncRNAs have been described to localize and act in mitochondria. As their transport mechanism into mitochondria is unknown their presence remains questionable. Finally, several lncRNAs have been discovered to be transcribed from mtDNA. These two latter mitochondria-localized, but origin-different lncRNAs could be refered to as nuclear-transported mitochondria-associated lncRNAs (ntmtlncRNAs) and mitochondria-encoded lncRNAs (mtlncRNAs) (Zhao et al., 2018).

Cytoplasmic lncRNAs With Impact on Mitochondria

Several lncRNAs, some previously well described in the non-mitochondrial function, have been associated with mitochondrial metabolism. As in the case of miRNAs, these lncRNAs were proposed to impact a variety of mitochondrial functions by directly targeting or indirectly influencing mitochondrial-related genes/transcripts/proteins. It should be noted that most of these studies report an indirect effect of lncRNAs perturbations on mitochondria function. Besides, most of these lncRNAs were reported in the context of complex systems such as cancer. Nevertheless, they could present possible treatment strategies (De Paepe et al., 2018). A summary of these findings is given in Table 5, with several examples given below.

Table 5

lncRNATargetReference
AK055347Cyp450, ATP synthase, MSS51Chen G. Y. et al., 2016
ANRILPARP, Bcl-2Zhu et al., 2015; Liu B. et al., 2016
CARLPHB2Wang et al., 2014
BATE1hnRNPUAlvarez-Dominguez et al., 2015
CCAT2GLSRedis et al., 2016
CeroxmiR-488-3pSirey et al., 2019
ENSMUST00000136025BIMChen X. et al., 2016
FAL1DRP1Liu et al., 2019
GAS5BAX, BAKGao et al., 2015
HOTAIRMICU1, UQCRBKong et al., 2015; Zheng et al., 2015
H19VDAC1Li et al., 2016
HOTTIPGLSGe et al., 2015
MEG3Bcl-2Wang et al., 2015b; Liu B. et al., 2016
MPRLmiR-483-5pTian et al., 2019
Pvt1c-Myc, Lipe, Cpt1aAlessio et al., 2019
Tug1PGC1-αLong et al., 2016
UCA1ARL2, miR-16, GLSLi et al., 2015; Li et al., 2017
UIHTCPGC1-αZhang et al., 2018

Nuclear-encoded lncRNAs affecting mitochondria-related genes.

Cerox1 (cytoplasmic endogenous regulator of oxidative phosphorylation 1) has been described as the first direct lncRNA modulator of OXPHOS. It has been reported to positively regulate the levels of at least 12 complex I transcripts in miRNA-dependent fashion, by binding miR-488-3p and blocking its post-transcriptional repression of these transcripts and enabling translation. Cerox1 knockdown was shown to decrease the enzymatic activities of complex I and IV. Accordingly, its overexpression was shown to increase their enzymatic activities and halve the cellular oxidative stress (Sirey et al., 2019).

Long et al. (2016) have described Tug1 as a regulator of PGC-1α transcription in diabetic nephropathy (DN). Tug1-binding site was identified upstream of the Ppargc1a promoter region. Tug1 interaction with this region recruited PGC-1α to promote its own gene transcription. Tug1 expression was significantly repressed in the podocytes of diabetic mice and its overexpression lead to improved mitochondrial bioenergetics (Long et al., 2016).

Li et al. (2017) proposed the pro-oncogenic role of lncRNA UCA1 in bladder tumors. UCA1 is supposed to regulate mitochondrial function through upregulating ARL2, a direct target of miR-195. In this way, it inhibits the miR-195 signaling pathway, leading to a tumor growth (Li et al., 2017).

Nuclear-Transported Mitochondria-Associated lncRNAs (ntmtlncRNAs)

Several nuclear-encoded lncRNAs have been reported in mitochondria and proposed to regulate their biology (Vendramin et al., 2017; Zhao et al., 2018). However, due to a very limited number of publications and unresolved import mechanism, the presence and role of these lncRNAs are yet to be confirmed.

SAMMSON is predominantly expressed in aggressive melanomas, where it was described as a promoter of cell growth (Leucci et al., 2016; Vendramin et al., 2018). It has been proposed to bind to CARF and promote its binding to p32 in the cytosol (Vendramin et al., 2018). p32 is a mitochondrial and cytosolic protein that is required for the maturation of mitochondrial rRNAs (Wu H. et al., 2013), but also described as an important player in tumor metabolism (Fogal et al., 2010). Its interaction with CARF via SAMMSON promotes its mitochondrial targeting, where it increases protein synthesis, leading to an increased tumor cell growth (Vendramin et al., 2018). Knockdown of SAMMSON was shown to impair the p32 targeting to the mitochondria, resulting in mitochondrial protein synthesis defects and increased apoptosis, which could be of therapeutical potential (Leucci et al., 2016). As a fraction of SAMMSON was found to co-localize and co-purify with mitochondria, Leucci et al. (2016) proposed that it is accompanying p32 to the mitochondria.

The steroid receptor RNA activator (SRA) is an important coactivator of nuclear hormone receptors and a target for several RBPs, namely SHARP and SLIRP (Colley et al., 2008). By interaction with SRA, SHARP represses SRA-augmented estrogen-induced transactivation (Shi et al., 2001). SLIRP binds to the complex of SRA and SHARP and interferes with the repressing activity of SHARP. However, SLIRP is predominantly localized to the mitochondria (Colley et al., 2008; Pagliarini et al., 2008), where it regulates the expression, processing, and stability of mRNAs (Baughman et al., 2009; Dong et al., 2017). SRA and SLIRP were found in mitochondria, but their import and roles are yet to be explained (Dong et al., 2017).

Metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) is one of the most-studied lncRNAs, mostly associated with cancer and metastasis (Wu et al., 2015; Sun and Li, 2019). Recently, Zhao et al. (2019) discovered that MALAT1, although normally enriched in the nucleus, to be also enriched in the mitochondria collected from HepG2 cells. MALAT1-deficient HepG2 cells produced less ATP and had impaired cell invasion, suggesting a role of this lncRNA in the mitochondrial metabolism (Zhao et al., 2019).

Mitochondria-Encoded lncRNAs (mtlncRNAs)

Sets of lncRNAs have been reported to be transcribed from the mtDNA (Figure 2). Surprisingly, it has been noted that some of these lncRNAs seem to operate in the nucleus. However, their trafficking raises questions far beyond the current knowledge (Dietrich et al., 2015; Vendramin et al., 2017). Up to this date, the existence and functional relevance of these lncRNAs are still debatable. Mitochondria-encoded lncRNAs are divided into three categories:

  • Simple antisense mitochondrial DNA-encoded lncRNAs

    Antisense transcripts arising from the ND4 and ND6 loci were initially detected in cDNA libraries of mice mitochondria, but Northern blot failed to confirm their presence (Lung et al., 2006). Later, strand-specific RNA-seq of purified mitochondria identified lncND5, lncND6, and lncCytb as antisense transcripts (Mercer et al., 2011). Rackham et al. (2011) confirmed existence of these transcripts by RNA-seq and RT-qPCR, additionally revealing that they are 58%, 34% and 14% as abundant as their mRNA counterparts, respectively. These antisense RNAs create RNA-RNA duplexes with their complementary mRNAs, suggesting their role in mRNAs expression and stability (Rackham et al., 2011). Interestingly, Zhao et al. (2019) discovered that lncCytB is aberrantly transported to the nucleus in hepatoma HepG2 cells as compared with normal hepatic HL7702 cells, suggesting a new function of this lncRNA as a mitochondria-nuclear communicator in cancer. Furthermore, Gao et al. (2018) discovered within the PacBio full-length transcriptome dataset the lncRNA MDL1, which covers the tRNAPro antisense gene and the entire D-loop region, and its antisense transcript MDL1AS.

  • Chimeric mitochondrial DNA-encoded lncRNAs

    The first member of this class was discovered in mouse cells, comprised of the 16S rRNA linked to a 121 nucleotide 5′-leader sequence deriving from its complementary strand (Villegas et al., 2000). Afterward, similar transcript, called sense mitochondrial ncRNA (SncmtRNA), was identified in humans, and in this case, the mitochondrial 16S rRNA is linked to an 815 nucleotide 5′-leader sequence from its complementary strand (Villegas et al., 2007). SncmtRNA forms an 820 bp, double-stranded structure with a 40 nucleotide loop (Dietrich et al., 2015). Interestingly, SncmtRNA was only detected in the proliferating tumor but not in resting cells, suggesting that it might serve as a marker of cell proliferation (Villegas et al., 2007). Later, two antisense lncRNAs, called ASncmtRNA-1 and ASncmtRNA-2 were discovered. Here, the antisense mitochondrial 16S rRNA is linked to a 310 or 545 nucleotide 5′-leader sequence deriving from the complementary sense strand (Burzio et al., 2009). These two transcripts also form distinct double-stranded structures with a nucleotide loop. In contrast to SncmtRNA, they were detected mainly in normal cells and were much less expressed in proliferating tumor cells, suggesting their role as tumor suppressors (Burzio et al., 2009). Later, they were reported to be present in the nucleus associated with heterochromatin (Landerer et al., 2011). However, more data is needed to support this claim. It has been postulated that ASncmtRNA-2 gets transported into the nucleus, where it presents a precursor of two miRNAs (hsamiR-4485 and hsa-miR-1973), which could potentially regulate survivin, an inhibitor of apoptosis (Vidaurre et al., 2014; Bianchessi et al., 2015). Indeed, knockdown of ASncmtRNAs promoted apoptotic cell death due to the survivin downregulation at the translational level (Vidaurre et al., 2014).

  • Putative mitochondrial DNA-encoded lncRNAs

    These lncRNAs have been identified in the heart disease studies (Kumarswamy et al., 2014; Yang et al., 2014; Dietrich et al., 2015). RNA-seq revealed a high relative abundance (over 70%) of these transcripts in the total lncRNA population from patients with a severe heart failure (Yang et al., 2014). The most significant lncRNA has been named long intergenic noncoding RNA predicting CARdiac remodeling (LIPCAR). Aligning the LIPCAR sequence to the human mtDNA revealed that the 5′ half aligns to the lncCytb, while the 3′ half aligns to the antisense region of COX2 (Dorn, 2014). As its circulating levels were increased in the late stages of left ventricular remodeling and patients with chronic heart failure, LIPCAR could be used as a prognostic biomarker (Kumarswamy et al., 2014; Dietrich et al., 2015).

To conclude, lncRNAs are slowly but surely drawing attention with their complex mechanisms behind gene regulation. However, the physiological relevance of lncRNAs in mitochondria is still enigmatic. The crucial issue is the investigation of transport of the nuclear- or mtDNA-encoded lncRNAs to mitochondria and even to the nucleus. Unfortunately, there is no published data on the topic so far. Finally, the questions of specific lncRNAs mechanisms of gene regulation remain to be solved.

lncRNA-Encoded Micropeptides

Micropeptides are a class of small peptides encoded by a sORFs, without N-terminal signaling sequence and as such are released into cytoplasm immediately after translation. Due to their sORF that escapes automatic gene annotation, they tend to be overlooked and therefore misannotated as non-coding. Indeed, lncRNAs and TUFs (transcripts of unknown function) represent the greatest source for sORFs (Yeasmin et al., 2018). Although numerous ribosome profiling studies have reported substantial ribosome occupancy of the lncRNA transcripts, the MS and the proteogenomic approaches have confirmed only a small portion of them, numbers ranging from less than 100 to up to 1600 (van Heesch et al., 2019). With a lack of consensus in the datasets, the true coding potential of lncRNAs currently remains open to speculation. Several in-depth investigations have characterized lncRNA-derived micropeptides with important roles in the ion channel modulation (Anderson et al., 2015), cell signaling (Matsumoto et al., 2017) and RNA regulation (D’Lima et al., 2017). It is important to state that the mammalian mitochondrial proteome is surprisingly enriched in micropeptides, accounting for 5% of its proteins (Calvo et al., 2016). In recent years, several micropeptides within lncRNA were discovered and characterized with a role in mitochondria, some even encoded by the mtDNA (Kim et al., 2017a). Termed mitochondrial-derived peptides (MDPs) (Kim et al., 2017a), these mtDNA-encoded peptides- humanin, MOTS-c, and SHLPs were described as potential mitochondrial bioenergetics and metabolism regulators.

Mitoregulin (MOXI, MPM) has been discovered by four different groups recently as a muscle- and heart-enriched 56-amino acids inner mitochondrial membrane micropeptide encoded within LINC00116. It has a role in mitochondrial respiratory chain supercomplexes support, fatty acids oxidation, and Ca2+ dynamics (Makarewich et al., 2018; Stein et al., 2018; Chugunova et al., 2019; Lin et al., 2019). Lin et al. (2019) highlighted its importance in the muscle tissue, finding it upregulated during myogenic differentiation and knockout mice exhibiting smaller skeletal muscle fibers, worse muscle performance, and slower regeneration.

Humanin is a 24-amino acids micropeptide whose sORF is embeded within the 16S rRNA of mtDNA (Yen et al., 2013). It was initially discovered in the surviving cells of Alzheimer’s disease brain (Hashimoto et al., 2001), suggesting its neuroprotective and cytoprotective role that has later been investigated and acknowledged across various diseases (Hashimoto et al., 2001; Muzumdar et al., 2009; Bachar et al., 2010; Oh et al., 2011; Gong et al., 2014; Kim et al., 2018). It was shown to block apoptosis, improve insulin sensitivity, decrease inflammation, and reduce oxidative stress during aging (Guo et al., 2003; Muzumdar et al., 2009; Zhao et al., 2013; Sreekumar et al., 2016). Its effects are yet to be assessed for therapeutic purposes, especially in the treatments of diabetes and neurodegenerative disorders.

MOTS-c (mitochondrial open reading frame of the 12S rRNA type-c) is a 16-amino acids micropeptide with an sORF within the 12S rRNA mtDNA and reported to act in the cytoplasm (Lee et al., 2015). The micropeptide was found to target the methionine-folate cycle and de novo purine biosynthesis pathway, increase AICAR levels, and activate AMPK, by which it increases glucose utilization, fatty acid oxidation, and changes nucleotide metabolism. MOTS-c has been proposed as a biomarker for metabolic function, as it correlates with markers of insulin resistance and obesity (Du et al., 2018). In high fat diet-induced obese mice, it prevented obesity, fat accumulation, and hyperinsulinemia, making it a possible therapeutic target (Lee et al., 2015).

SHLPs (small humanin-like peptides) are a group of 6 peptides discovered by an in silico approach to be encoded in the 16S rRNA region of mtDNA in mice (Cobb et al., 2016). Each peptide is 20-38 amino acids long, and their names were given due to similar biological effects as Humanin. Each SHLP showed a unique expression pattern across different tissues. Incubation of each synthetic SHLP with cells affected cell viability, proliferation, and apoptosis differentially, suggesting a specific role of each. Moreover, SHLP2 and SHLP3 induced oxygen consumption rate (OCR) and increased cellular ATP levels, which indicated them as mitochondrial modulators (Cobb et al., 2016). Indeed, the administration of SHLP2 to a cellular model of macular degeneration rescued its defects in the OXPHOS and the mtDNA copy number, and induced anti-apoptotic effects, indicating its therapeutic potential (Nashine et al., 2018). In addition, an intracerebral infusion of SHLP2 increased glucose uptake and suppressed hepatic glucose production (Cobb et al., 2016). Further supporting their role as insulin sensitizers, both SHLPs promoted pre-adipocyte differentiation (Cobb et al., 2016). Similarly to humanin, the circulating levels of MOTS-c and SHLP2 declined with age, indicating that they are potential regulators of aging (Lee et al., Lee et al., 2015; Cobb et al., 2016).

Concluding Remarks

Development of high-throughput OMICS techniques, especially the next-generation sequencing, has shed new light on the non-coding fraction of the genome. Transcription of the majority of the eukaryotic genome generates not only mRNAs but a much bigger fraction of different ncRNA species that show complex structure, patterns of expression and regulation. It is now becoming apparent that RNAs are not important for cell only in the context of mRNAs as intermediates between DNA and protein, but also as powerful players themselves by affecting basically any stage of gene expression. The now expanding RNA field highlights the importance of bioinformatics analysis in order to predict and examine existence, evolution, structure, and function of non-coding regions and transcripts. Focusing on mitochondria, dozens of ncRNAs acting in the cytosol have been described to indirectly influence mitochondrial biology, usually by targeting mitochondria-related, nuclear-encoded transcripts. More surprisingly, recent research indicated that the mitochondrial transcriptome could represent a mixture of the intrinsic transcriptome and complemented by some extrinsic RNA, implying RNA import (Figure 1). Although dozens of papers reported ncRNAs in mitochondria, their existence is still under a question mark. Further research will need to identify their interacting partners and elucidate the molecular mechanisms behind their synthesis, transport, and function. Housekeeping ncRNAs have been proposed to have a mitochondrial localization even for decades, however, recent deeper insights into the mitochondrial biology have cast a shadow on their hypothesized role. It is clear that the re-evaluation of their presence and especially function in mitochondria is needed. Focusing on miRNA, they are well-described fine-modulators of gene regulation in the cytosol. It is not surprising that they can impact mitochondria by targeting its transcripts in the cytosol. Additionally, recent discoveries of mitomiRs suggest an attractive, even closer interplay of miRNAs and mitochondria occurring in mitochondria themselves. Yet, these findings are still a topic of many debates and therefore should be handled with caution. On the one side, the discovery of mitomiRs across different tissues and cell types by different techniques promises they are more than a false-positive finding. However, on the other side is the poor overlap between datasets that raises doubts concerning methods used. Focusing on lncRNAs, although they are among the least well-understood of these transcript species, they are slowly but surely emerging as important components of gene regulatory networks. Although the field of lncRNAs has just started to expand, published reports indicate that they influence mitochondria in different ways. Moreover, mtDNA seems to encode some lncRNAs itself. However, this field is still very fresh and further confirmation is needed, especially in the case of mitochondria-imported lncRNAs. Of clinical relevance, ncRNAs dysregulation has been noted in various mitochondria-related diseases, mostly cancer. Their association with tumorigenesis has been increasingly demonstrated. As ncRNAs often exhibit cancer-type-specific expression patterns (Iyer et al., 2015), targeting them could prove as a very selective and specific approach. Notably, they can be targeted by the antagomiRs or antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) (reviewed by Matsui and Corey, 2017). Indeed, several pre-clinical studies have already demonstrated the therapeutic benefits of ncRNA inhibition. For example, inhibition of SAMMSON in melanoma xenografts suppressed the tumor growth (Leucci et al., 2016). ASOs targeting ASncmtRNA reduced the progression of renal adenocarcinoma and melanoma metastases in mice (Lobos-Gonzalez et al., 2016; Borgna et al., 2017). Finally, ncRNA-derived micropeptides, although biologically active as peptides, are especially interesting in terms of their discovery. As many ribosomal-profiling studies report significant ribosomal occupancy of non-coding transcripts, it is evident that further confirmation of these findings by mass spectrometry is needed in order to recognize the importance of these reported translational activities. Discoveries of mitochondrial-derived peptides and enrichment of the mammalian mitochondrial proteome in micropeptides suggest the organelle as an evolutionary playground for small proteins, either due to still unknown localization signals or import system or simply driven by the size or amino acid (positive charge) composition (van Heesch et al., 2019). This also promises that there could be many micropeptides hidden in the non-coding region, awaiting discovery and characterization. Of clinical interest, discovered mitochondria-derived micropeptides have exhibited a variety of cyto- and neuroprotective effects, and promising results of both in vitro and in vivo studies further strengthen their therapeutic potential. Overall, ncRNAs in mitochondria present a thought-provoking, but unfortunately still neglected field of study. It raises many interesting, but also challenging questions whose answers might be of clinical importance. It may reveal some enigmatic biological mechanisms (such as the RNA import in mitochondria) and eventually lead to the development of new therapeutic strategies for mitochondria-related diseases. However, before the field of ncRNA truly expands, there are still a lot of experimental approaches to be optimized and biological mechanisms to be deciphered to conclude their importance for mitochondria.

Statements

Author contributions

MG: conceived the topic for the review, wrote the manuscript and created the tables and figures. HP: helped shape the review, supervised the writing process, provided the critical feedback, contributed to the final version of the manuscript.

Acknowledgments

Authors acknowledge the support by the DZHG (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research) and the BMBF (German Federal Ministry for Education and Research).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

References

  • 1

    AdlakhaY. K.KhannaS.SinghR.SinghV. P.AgrawalA.SainiN. (2013). Pro-apoptotic miRNA-128-2 modulates ABCA1, ABCG1 and RXRalpha expression and cholesterol homeostasis. Cell Death Dis.4, e780. doi: 10.1038/cddis.2013.301

  • 2

    AgaronyanK.MorozovY. I.AnikinM.TemiakovD. (2015). Mitochondrial biology. Replication-transcription switch in human mitochondria. Science347 (6221), 548551. doi: 10.1126/science.aaa0986

  • 3

    AlessioE.BusonL.ChemelloF.PeggionC.GrespiF.MartiniP.et al. (2019). Single cell analysis reveals the involvement of the long non-coding RNA Pvt1 in the modulation of muscle atrophy and mitochondrial network. Nucleic Acids Res.47 (4), 16531670. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkz007

  • 4

    Alvarez-DominguezJ. R.BaiZ.XuD.YuanB.LoK. A.YoonM. J.et al. (2015). De Novo reconstruction of adipose tissue transcriptomes reveals long Non-coding RNA regulators of brown adipocyte development. Cell Metab.21 (5), 764776. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2015.04.003

  • 5

    AndersonS.BankierA. T.BarrellB. G.de BruijnM. H.CoulsonA. R.DrouinJ.et al. (1981). Sequence and organization of the human mitochondrial genome. Nature290 (5806), 457465. doi: 10.1038/290457a0

  • 6

    AndersonD. M.AndersonK. M.ChangC. L.MakarewichC. A.NelsonB. R.McAnallyJ. R.et al. (2015). A Micropeptide encoded by a putative long noncoding RNA regulates muscle performance. Cell160 (4), 595606. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2015.01.009

  • 7

    AndrewsS. J.RothnagelJ. A. (2014). Emerging evidence for functional peptides encoded by short open reading frames. Nat. Rev. Genet.15 (3), 193204. doi: 10.1038/nrg3520

  • 8

    AntonickaH.SasarmanF.NishimuraT.PaupeV.ShoubridgeE. A. (2013). The mitochondrial RNA-Binding protein GRSF1 localizes to RNA granules and is required for posttranscriptional mitochondrial gene expression. Cell Metab.17 (3), 386398. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2013.02.006

  • 9

    AoiW.NaitoY.MizushimaK.TakanamiY.KawaiY.IchikawaH.et al. (2010). The microRNA miR-696 regulates PGC-1{alpha} in mouse skeletal muscle in response to physical activity. Am. J. Physiol. Endocrinol. Metab.298 (4), E799E806. doi: 10.1152/ajpendo.00448.2009

  • 10

    AschrafiA.SchwechterA. D.MamezaM. G.Natera-NaranjoO.GioioA. E.KaplanB. B. (2008). MicroRNA-338 regulates local cytochrome c oxidase IV mRNA levels and oxidative phosphorylation in the axons of sympathetic neurons. J. Neurosci.28 (47), 1258112590. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3338-08.2008

  • 11

    AschrafiA.KarA. N.Natera-NaranjoO.MacGibenyM. A.GioioA. E.KaplanB. B. (2012). MicroRNA-338 regulates the axonal expression of multiple nuclear-encoded mitochondrial mRNAs encoding subunits of the oxidative phosphorylation machinery. Cell Mol. Life Sci.69 (23), 40174027. doi: 10.1007/s00018-012-1064-8

  • 12

    AutourA.JengS. C. Y.CawteA. D.AbdolahzadehA.GalliA.PanchapakesanS. S. S.et al. (2018). Fluorogenic RNA Mango aptamers for imaging small non-coding RNAs in mammalian cells. Nat. Commun.9 (1), 656. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-02993-8

  • 13

    BacharA. R.SchefferL.SchroederA. S.NakamuraH. K.CobbL. J.OhY. K.et al. (2010). Humanin is expressed in human vascular walls and has a cytoprotective effect against oxidized LDL-induced oxidative stress. Cardiovasc. Res.88 (2), 360366. doi: 10.1093/cvr/cvq191

  • 14

    BaiX. Y.MaY.DingR.FuB.ShiS.ChenX. M. (2011). miR-335 and miR-34a Promote renal senescence by suppressing mitochondrial antioxidative enzymes. J. Am. Soc. Nephrol.22 (7), 12521261. doi: 10.1681/ASN.2010040367

  • 15

    BandieraS.RubergS.GirardM.CagnardN.HaneinS.ChretienD.et al. (2011). Nuclear outsourcing of RNA interference components to human mitochondria. PloS One6 (6), e20746. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0020746

  • 16

    BandieraS.MategotR.GirardM.DemongeotJ.Henrion-CaudeA. (2013). MitomiRs delineating the intracellular localization of microRNAs at mitochondria. Free Radic. Biol. Med.64, 1219. doi: 10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2013.06.013

  • 17

    BaradanR.HollanderJ. M.DasS. (2017). Mitochondrial miRNAs in diabetes: just the tip of the iceberg. Can. J. Physiol. Pharmacol.95 (10), 11561162. doi: 10.1139/cjpp-2016-0580

  • 18

    BarreyE.Saint-AuretG.BonnamyB.DamasD.BoyerO.GidrolX. (2011). Pre-microRNA and mature microRNA in human mitochondria. PloS One6 (5), e20220. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0020220

  • 19

    BarshadG.MaromS.CohenT.MishmarD. (2018). Mitochondrial DNA transcription and its regulation: an evolutionary perspective. Trends Genet.34 (9), 682692. doi: 10.1016/j.tig.2018.05.009

  • 20

    BartelD. P. (2009). MicroRNAs: target recognition and regulatory functions. Cell136 (2), 215233. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.01.002

  • 21

    BartkiewiczM.GoldH.AltmanS. (1989). Identification and characterization of an RNA molecule that copurifies with RNase P activity from HeLa cells. Genes Dev.3 (4), 488499. doi: 10.1101/gad.3.4.488

  • 22

    BaselerW. A.ThapaD.JagannathanR.DabkowskiE. R.CrostonT. L.HollanderJ. M. (2012). miR-141 as a regulator of the mitochondrial phosphate carrier (Slc25a3) in the type 1 diabetic heart. Am. J. Physiology-Cell Physiol.303 (12), C1244C1251. doi: 10.1152/ajpcell.00137.2012

  • 23

    BaskervilleS.BartelD. P. (2005). Microarray profiling of microRNAs reveals frequent coexpression with neighboring miRNAs and host genes. RNA11 (3), 241247. doi: 10.1261/rna.7240905

  • 24

    BaughmanJ. M.NilssonR.GohilV. M.ArlowD. H.GauharZ.MoothaV. K. (2009). A computational screen for regulators of oxidative phosphorylation implicates SLIRP in mitochondrial RNA homeostasis. PloS Genet.5 (8), e1000590. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000590

  • 25

    BianZ.LiL. M.TangR.HouD. X.ChenX.ZhangC. Y.et al. (2010). Identification of mouse liver mitochondria-associated miRNAs and their potential biological functions. Cell Res.20 (9), 10761078. doi: 10.1038/cr.2010.119

  • 26

    BianchessiV.BadiI.BertolottiM.NigroP.D’AlessandraY.CapogrossiM. C.et al. (2015). The mitochondrial lncRNA ASncmtRNA-2 is induced in aging and replicative senescence in Endothelial Cells. J. Mol. Cell. Cardiol.81, 6270. doi: 10.1016/j.yjmcc.2015.01.012

  • 27

    Bienertova-VaskuJ.SanaJ.SlabyO. (2013). The role of microRNAs in mitochondria in cancer. Cancer Lett.336 (1), 17. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2013.05.001

  • 28

    BorgnaV.VillegasJ.BurzioV. A.BelmarS.ArayaM.JeldesE.et al. (2017). Mitochondrial ASncmtRNA-1 and ASncmtRNA-2 as potent targets to inhibit tumor growth and metastasis in the RenCa murine renal adenocarcinoma model. Oncotarget8 (27), 4369243708. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.18460

  • 29

    BorowskiL. S.DziembowskiA.HejnowiczM. S.StepienP. P.SzczesnyR. J. (2013). Human mitochondrial RNA decay mediated by PNPase-hSuv3 complex takes place in distinct foci. Nucleic Acids Res.41 (2), 12231240. doi: 10.1093/nar/gks1130

  • 30

    BriggsJ. A.WolvetangE. J.MattickJ. S.RinnJ. L.BarryG. (2015). Mechanisms of long Non-coding RNAs in Mammalian nervous system development, plasticity, disease, and evolution. Neuron88 (5), 861877. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.09.045

  • 31

    BrzezniakL. K.BijataM.SzczesnyR. J.StepienP. P. (2011). Involvement of human ELAC2 gene product in 3′ end processing of mitochondrial tRNAs. RNA Biol.8 (4), 616626. doi: 10.4161/rna.8.4.15393

  • 32

    BuchaS.MukhopadhyayD.BhattacharyyaN. P. (2015). Regulation of mitochondrial morphology and cell cycle by microRNA-214 targeting Mitofusin2. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun.465 (4), 797802. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2015.08.090

  • 33

    BukeiratM.SarkarS. N.HuH.QuintanaD. D.SimpkinsJ. W.RenX. (2016). MiR-34a regulates blood-brain barrier permeability and mitochondrial function by targeting cytochrome c. J. Cereb. Blood Flow Metab.36 (2), 387392. doi: 10.1177/0271678X15606147

  • 34

    BurzioV. A.VillotaC.VillegasJ.LandererE.BoccardoE.VillaL. L.et al. (2009). Expression of a family of noncoding mitochondrial RNAs distinguishes normal from cancer cells. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.106 (23), 94309434. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0903086106

  • 35

    CalvoS. E.ClauserK. R.MoothaV. K. (2016). MitoCarta2.0: an updated inventory of mammalian mitochondrial proteins. Nucleic Acids Res.44 (D1), D1251D1257. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkv1003

  • 36

    CardenT.SinghB.MoogaV.BajpaiP.SinghK. K. (2017). Epigenetic modification of miR-663 controls mitochondria-to-nucleus retrograde signaling and tumor progression. J. Biol. Chem.292 (50), 2069420706. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M117.797001

  • 37

    Carlevaro-FitaJ.JohnsonR. (2019). Global positioning system: understanding long noncoding RNAs through subcellular localization. Mol. Cell73 (5), 869883. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2019.02.008

  • 38

    CarrerM.LiuN.GrueterC. E.WilliamsA. H.FrisardM. I.HulverM. W.et al. (2012). Control of mitochondrial metabolism and systemic energy homeostasis by microRNAs 378 and 378*. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.109 (38), 1533015335. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1207605109

  • 39

    CarthewR. W.SontheimerE. J. (2009). Origins and mechanisms of miRNAs and siRNAs. Cell136 (4), 642655. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.01.035

  • 40

    ChanS. Y.ZhangY. Y.HemannC.MahoneyC. E.ZweierJ. L.LoscalzoJ. (2009). MicroRNA-210 controls mitochondrial metabolism during hypoxia by repressing the iron-sulfur cluster assembly proteins ISCU1/2. Cell Metab.10 (4), 273284. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2009.08.015

  • 41

    ChangD. D.ClaytonD. A. (1984). Precise identification of individual promoters for transcription of each strand of human mitochondrial DNA. Cell36 (3), 635664. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(84)90343-x

  • 42

    ChangD. D.ClaytonD. A. (1987a). A mammalian mitochondrial RNA processing activity contains nucleus-encoded RNA. Science235 (4793), 11781184. doi: 10.1126/science.2434997

  • 43

    ChangD. D.ClaytonD. A. (1987b). A novel endoribonuclease cleaves at a priming site of mouse mitochondrial DNA replication. EMBO J.6 (2), 409417. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1987.tb04770.x

  • 44

    ChaudhuriA. D.ChoiD. C.KabariaS.TranA.JunnE. (2016). MicroRNA-7 regulates the function of mitochondrial permeability transition pore by targeting VDAC1 expression. J. Biol. Chem.291 (12), 64836493. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M115.691352

  • 45

    ChekulaevaM.FilipowiczW. (2009). Mechanisms of miRNA-mediated post-transcriptional regulation in animal cells. Curr. Opin. Cell Biol.21 (3), 452460. doi: 10.1016/j.ceb.2009.04.009

  • 46

    ChenX.WangK. H.ChenJ. N.GuoJ. G.YinY.CaiX.et al. (2009). In vitro evidence suggests that miR-133a-mediated regulation of Uncoupling Protein 2 (UCP2) is an indispensable step in myogenic differentiation. J. Biol. Chem.284 (8), 53625369. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M807523200

  • 47

    ChenZ.LiY.ZhangH.HuangP.LuthraR. (2010). Hypoxia-regulated microRNA-210 modulates mitochondrial function and decreases ISCU and COX10 expression. Oncogene29 (30), 43624368. doi: 10.1038/onc.2010.193

  • 48

    ChenB.LiuY.JinX.LuW.LiuJ.XiaZ.et al. (2014). MicroRNA-26a regulates glucose metabolism by direct targeting PDHX in colorectal cancer cells. BMC Cancer14, 443. doi: 10.1186/1471-2407-14-443

  • 49

    ChenG. Y.GuoH.SongY.ChangH. Y.WangS. J.ZhangM. M.et al. (2016). Long non-coding RNA AK055347 is upregulated in patients with atrial fibrillation and regulates mitochondrial energy production in myocardiocytes. Mol. Med. Rep.14 (6), 53115317. doi: 10.3892/mmr.2016.5893

  • 50

    ChenX.ZhouX.LuD.YangX.ZhouZ.ChenX.et al. (2016). Aberrantly expressed long noncoding RNAs are involved in sevoflurane-induced developing hippocampal neuronal apoptosis: a microarray related study. Metab. Brain Dis.31 (5), 10311040. doi: 10.1007/s11011-016-9838-6

  • 51

    ChengY.LiuP. P.ZhengQ.GaoG.YuanJ. P.WangP. F.et al. (2018). Mitochondrial trafficking and processing of Telomerase RNA TERC. Cell Rep.24 (10), 25892595. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.08.003

  • 52

    Chooniedass-KothariS.EmberleyE.HamedaniM. K.TroupS.WangX.CzosnekA.et al. (2004). The steroid receptor RNA activator is the first functional RNA encoding a protein. FEBS Lett.566 (1-3), 4347. doi: 10.1016/j.febslet.2004.03.104

  • 53

    ChuS.ArcherR. H.ZengelJ. M.LindahlL. (1994). The RNA of RNase MRP is required for normal processing of ribosomal RNA. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.91 (2), 659663. doi: 10.1073/pnas.91.2.659

  • 54

    ChugunovaA.LosevaE.MazinP.MitinaA.NavalayeuT.BilanD.et al. (2019). LINC00116 codes for a mitochondrial peptide linking respiration and lipid metabolism. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.116 (11), 49404945. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1809105116

  • 55

    CigandaM.WilliamsN. (2011). Eukaryotic 5S rRNA biogenesis. Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. RNA2 (4), 523533. doi: 10.1002/wrna.74

  • 56

    CimminoA.CalinG. A.FabbriM.IorioM. V.FerracinM.ShimizuM.et al. (2005). miR-15 and miR-16 induce apoptosis by targeting BCL2. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.102 (39), 1394413949. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0506654102

  • 57

    CivelekM.HagopianR.PanC.CheN.YangW. P.KayneP. S.et al. (2013). Genetic regulation of human adipose microRNA expression and its consequences for metabolic traits. Hum. Mol. Genet.22 (15), 30233037. doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddt159

  • 58

    CobbL. J.LeeC. H.XiaoJ. L.YenK.WongR. G.NakamuraH. K.et al. (2016). Naturally occurring mitochondrial-derived peptides are age-dependent regulators of apoptosis, insulin sensitivity, and inflammatory markers. Aging-Us8 (4), 796809. doi: 10.18632/aging.100943

  • 59

    ColleyS. M.IyerK. R.LeedmanP. J. (2008). The RNA coregulator SRA, its binding proteins and nuclear receptor signaling activity. IUBMB Life60 (3), 159164. doi: 10.1002/iub.22

  • 60

    ConsortiumE. P. (2012). An integrated encyclopedia of DNA elements in the human genome. Nature489 (7414), 5774. doi: 10.1038/nature11247

  • 61

    CzechB.HannonG. J. (2011). Small RNA sorting: matchmaking for Argonautes. Nat. Rev. Genet.12 (1), 1931. doi: 10.1038/nrg2916

  • 62

    D’LimaN. G.MaJ.WinklerL.ChuQ.LohK. H.CorpuzE. O.et al. (2017). A human microprotein that interacts with the mRNA decapping complex. Nat. Chem. Biol.13 (2), 174180. doi: 10.1038/Nchembio.2249

  • 63

    D’SouzaA. R.MinczukM. (2018). Mitochondrial transcription and translation: overview. Mitochondrial Dis.62 (3), 309320. doi: 10.1042/Ebc20170102

  • 64

    DahlmansD.HouzelleA.AndreuxP.WangX.JorgensenJ. A.MoullanN.et al. (2019). MicroRNA-382 silencing induces a mitonuclear protein imbalance and activates the mitochondrial unfolded protein response in muscle cells. J. Cell Physiol.234 (5), 66016610. doi: 10.1002/jcp.27401

  • 65

    DasS.FerlitoM.KentO. A.Fox-TalbotK.WangR.LiuD. L.et al. (2012). Nuclear miRNA regulates the mitochondrial genome in the heart. Circ. Res.110 (12), 15961603. doi: 10.1161/Circresaha.112.267732

  • 66

    DasS.BedjaD.CampbellN.DunkerlyB.ChennaV.MaitraA.et al. (2014). miR-181c regulates the mitochondrial genome, bioenergetics, and propensity for heart failure in vivo. PloS One9 (5), e96820. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0096820

  • 67

    DasguptaN.PengY.TanZ.CiraoloG.WangD.LiR. (2015). miRNAs in mtDNA-less cell mitochondria. Cell Death Discovery1, 15004. doi: 10.1038/cddiscovery.2015.4

  • 68

    De PaepeB.LefeverS.MestdaghP. (2018). How long noncoding RNAs enforce their will on mitochondrial activity: regulation of mitochondrial respiration, reactive oxygen species production, apoptosis, and metabolic reprogramming in cancer. Curr. Genet.64 (1), 163172. doi: 10.1007/s00294-017-0744-1

  • 69

    DerrienT.JohnsonR.BussottiG.TanzerA.DjebaliS.TilgnerH.et al. (2012). The GENCODE v7 catalog of human long noncoding RNAs: analysis of their gene structure, evolution, and expression. Genome Res.22 (9), 17751789. doi: 10.1101/gr.132159.111

  • 70

    DeslerC.LykkeA.RasmussenL. J. (2010). The effect of mitochondrial dysfunction on cytosolic nucleotide metabolism. J. Nucleic Acids. pii: 701518. doi: 10.4061/2010/701518. 2010.

  • 71

    DietrichA.WalletC.IqbalR. K.GualbertoJ. M.LotfiF. (2015). Organellar non-coding RNAs: emerging regulation mechanisms. Biochimie117, 4862. doi: 10.1016/j.biochi.2015.06.027

  • 72

    DikicI.ElazarZ. (2018). Mechanism and medical implications of mammalian autophagy. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol.19 (6), 349364. doi: 10.1038/s41580-018-0003-4

  • 73

    DingerM. E.PangK. C.MercerT. R.MattickJ. S. (2008). Differentiating protein-coding and noncoding RNA: challenges and ambiguities. PloS Comput. Biol.4 (11), e1000176. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000176

  • 74

    DjebaliS.DavisC. A.MerkelA.DobinA.LassmannT.MortazaviA.et al. (2012). Landscape of transcription in human cells. Nature489 (7414), 101108. doi: 10.1038/nature11233

  • 75

    DoersenC. J.Guerrier-TakadaC.AltmanS.AttardiG. (1985). Characterization of an RNase P activity from HeLa cell mitochondria. Comparison with the cytosol RNase P activity. J. Biol. Chem.260 (10), 59425949.

  • 76

    DongY. R.YoshitomiT.HuJ. F.CuiJ. Z. (2017). Long noncoding RNAs coordinate functions between mitochondria and the nucleus. Epigenet. Chromatin10 (1), 41. doi: 10.1186/s13072-017-0149-x

  • 77

    DornG. W.2nd (2014). LIPCAR: a mitochondrial lnc in the noncoding RNA chain? Circ. Res.114 (10), 15481550. doi: 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.114.304028

  • 78

    DuY.LiJ.XuT.ZhouD. D.ZhangL.WangX. (2017). MicroRNA-145 induces apoptosis of glioma cells by targeting BNIP3 and Notch signaling. Oncotarget8 (37), 6151061527. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.18604

  • 79

    DuC.ZhangC.WuW.LiangY.WangA.WuS.et al. (2018). Circulating MOTS-c levels are decreased in obese male children and adolescents and associated with insulin resistance. Pediatr. Diabetes19, 10581064. doi: 10.1111/pedi.12685

  • 80

    DuretL.ChureauC.SamainS.WeissenbachJ.AvnerP. (2006). The Xist RNA gene evolved in eutherians by pseudogenization of a protein-coding gene. Science312 (5780), 16531655. doi: 10.1126/science.1126316

  • 81

    el AzzouziH.LeptidisS.DirkxE.HoeksJ.van BreeB.BrandK.et al. (2013). The hypoxia-inducible microRNA cluster miR-199a approximately 214 targets myocardial PPARdelta and impairs mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation. Cell Metab.18 (3), 341354. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2013.08.009

  • 82

    EntelisN. S.KolesnikovaO. A.DoganS.MartinR. P.TarassovI. A. (2001). 5 S rRNA and tRNA import into human mitochondria - Comparison of in vitro requirements. J. Biol. Chem.276 (49), 4564245653. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M103906200

  • 83

    EsakovaO.KrasilnikovA. S. (2010). Of proteins and RNA: the RNase P/MRP family. RNA16 (9), 17251747. doi: 10.1261/rna.2214510

  • 84

    EsauC.DavisS.MurrayS. F.YuX. X.PandeyS. K.PearM.et al. (2006). miR-122 regulation of lipid metabolism revealed by in vivo antisense targeting. Cell Metab.3 (2), 8798. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2006.01.005

  • 85

    FanS.ChenW. X.LvX. B.TangQ. L.SunL. J.LiuB. D.et al. (2015). miR-483-5p determines mitochondrial fission and cisplatin sensitivity in tongue squamous cell carcinoma by targeting FIS1. Cancer Lett.362 (2), 183191. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2015.03.045

  • 86

    FanS.TianT.ChenW.LvX.LeiX.ZhangH.et al. (2019). Mitochondrial miRNA determines chemoresistance by reprogramming metabolism and regulating Mitochondrial transcription. Cancer Res.79 (6), 10691084. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-18-2505

  • 87

    FaticaA.BozzoniI. (2014). Long non-coding RNAs: new players in cell differentiation and development. Nat. Rev. Genet.15 (1), 721. doi: 10.1038/nrg3606

  • 88

    FazalF. M.HanS.ParkerK. R.KaewsapsakP.XuJ.BoettigerA. N.et al. (2019). Atlas of subcellular RNA localization revealed by APEX-Seq. Cell178 (2), 473490 e426. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.05.027

  • 89

    FieldsA. P.RodriguezE. H.JovanovicM.Stern-GinossarN.HaasB. J.MertinsP.et al. (2015). A regression-based analysis of ribosome-profiling data reveals a conserved complexity to mammalian translation. Mol. Cell60 (5), 816827. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2015.11.013

  • 90

    FogalV.RichardsonA. D.KarmaliP. P.SchefflerI. E.SmithJ. W.RuoslahtiE. (2010). Mitochondrial p32 protein is a critical regulator of tumor metabolism via maintenance of oxidative phosphorylation. Mol. Cell Biol.30 (6), 13031318. doi: 10.1128/MCB.01101-09

  • 91

    FrankelL. B.WenJ. Y.LeesM.Hoyer-HansenM.FarkasT.KroghA.et al. (2011). microRNA-101 is a potent inhibitor of autophagy. EMBO J.30 (22), 46284641. doi: 10.1038/emboj.2011.331

  • 92

    FriedmanR. C.FarhK. K.BurgeC. B.BartelD. P. (2009). Most mammalian mRNAs are conserved targets of microRNAs. Genome Res.19 (1), 92105. doi: 10.1101/gr.082701.108

  • 93

    GallJ. G. (1990). Telomerase RNA: tying up the loose ends. Nature344 (6262), 108109. doi: 10.1038/344108a0

  • 94

    GaoP.TchernyshyovI.ChangT. C.LeeY. S.KitaK.OchiT.et al. (2009). c-Myc suppression of miR-23a/b enhances mitochondrial glutaminase expression and glutamine metabolism. Nature458 (7239), 762765. doi: 10.1038/nature07823

  • 95

    GaoJ.LiuM.ZouY.MaoM.ShenT.ZhangC.et al. (2015). Long non-coding RNA growth arrest-specific transcript 5 is involved in ovarian cancer cell apoptosis through the mitochondria-mediated apoptosis pathway. Oncol. Rep.34 (6), 32123221. doi: 10.3892/or.2015.4318

  • 96

    GaoS.TianX. X.ChangH.SunY.WuZ. F.ChengZ.et al. (2018). Two novel lncRNAs discovered in human mitochondrial DNA using PacBio full-length transcriptome data. Mitochondrion38, 4147. doi: 10.1016/j.mito.2017.08.002

  • 97

    GeY. X.YanX. D.JinY. G.YangX. Y.YuX.ZhouL. Q.et al. (2015). fMiRNA-192 and miRNA-204 directly suppress lncRNA HOTTIP and interrupt GLS1-mediated Glutaminolysis in Hepatocellular Carcinoma. PloS Genet.12 (1), e1005825. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1005726

  • 98

    GeigerJ.DalgaardL. T. (2017). Interplay of mitochondrial metabolism and microRNAs. Cell Mol. Life Sci.74 (4), 631646. doi: 10.1007/s00018-016-2342-7

  • 99

    GerinI.ClerbauxL. A.HaumontO.LanthierN.DasA. K.BurantC. F.et al. (2010). Expression of miR-33 from an SREBP2 intron inhibits cholesterol export and fatty acid oxidation. J. Biol. Chem.285 (44), 3365233661. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M110.152090

  • 100

    GoldfarbK. C.CechT. R. (2017). Targeted CRISPR disruption reveals a role for RNase MRP RNA in human preribosomal RNA processing. Genes Dev.31 (1), 5971. doi: 10.1101/gad.286963.116

  • 101

    GongZ.TasE.MuzumdarR. (2014). Humanin and age-related diseases: a new link? Front. Endocrinol. (Lausanne)5, 210. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2014.00210

  • 102

    GowherA.SmirnovA.TarassovI.EntelisN. (2013). Induced tRNA import into human Mitochondria: implication of a Host Aminoacyl-tRNA-Synthetase. PloS One8 (6), e66228. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0066228

  • 103

    GreberB. J.BieriP.LeibundgutM.LeitnerA.AebersoldR.BoehringerD.et al. (2015). Ribosome. The complete structure of the 55S mammalian mitochondrial ribosome. Science348 (6232), 303308. doi: 10.1126/science.aaa3872

  • 104

    GuanX. X.WangL.LiuZ. H.GuoX. F.JiangY.LuY.et al. (2016). miR-106a promotes cardiac hypertrophy by targeting mitofusin 2. J. Mol. Cell. Cardiol.99, 207217. doi: 10.1016/j.yjmcc.2016.08.016

  • 105

    GuoB.ZhaiD. Y.CabezasE.WelshK.NourainiS.SatterthwaitA. C.et al. (2003). Humanin peptide suppresses apoptosis by interfering with Bax activation. Nature423 (6938), 456461. doi: 10.1038/nature01627

  • 106

    GuttmanM.RussellP.IngoliaN. T.WeissmanJ. S.LanderE. S. (2013). Ribosome profiling provides evidence that large noncoding RNAs do not encode proteins. Cell154 (1), 240251. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.06.009

  • 107

    HanJ.LeeY.YeomK. H.NamJ. W.HeoI.RheeJ. K.et al. (2006). Molecular basis for the recognition of primary microRNAs by the Drosha-DGCR8 complex. Cell125 (5), 887901. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2006.03.043

  • 108

    HangauerM. J.VaughnI. W.McManusM. T. (2013). Pervasive transcription of the human genome produces thousands of previously unidentified long intergenic noncoding RNAs. PloS Genet.9 (6), e1003569. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1003569

  • 109

    HashimotoY.NiikuraT.TajimaH.YasukawaT.SudoH.ItoY.et al. (2001). A rescue factor abolishing neuronal cell death by a wide spectrum of familial Alzheimer’s disease genes and Abeta. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A98 (11), 63366341. doi: 10.1073/pnas.101133498

  • 110

    HolzmannJ.FrankP.LofflerE.BennettK. L.GernerC.RossmanithW. (2008). RNase P without RNA: identification and functional reconstitution of the human mitochondrial tRNA processing enzyme. Cell135 (3), 462474. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2008.09.013

  • 111

    HuW.ChanC. S.WuR.ZhangC.SunY.SongJ. S.et al. (2010). Negative regulation of tumor suppressor p53 by microRNA miR-504. Mol. Cell38 (5), 689699. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2010.05.027

  • 112

    HuangL.MolletS.SouquereS.Le RoyF.Ernoult-LangeM.PierronG.et al. (2011). Mitochondria associate with P-bodies and modulate MicroRNA-mediated RNA Interference. J. Biol. Chem.286 (27), 2421924230. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M111.240259

  • 113

    HuarteM. (2015). The emerging role of lncRNAs in cancer. Nat. Med.21 (11), 12531261. doi: 10.1038/nm.3981

  • 114

    IliopoulosD.DrosatosK.HiyamaY.GoldbergI. J.ZannisV. I. (2010). MicroRNA-370 controls the expression of microRNA-122 and Cpt1alpha and affects lipid metabolism. J. Lipid Res.51 (6), 15131523. doi: 10.1194/jlr.M004812

  • 115

    IngoliaN. T.GhaemmaghamiS.NewmanJ. R. S.WeissmanJ. S. (2009). Genome-wide analysis in vivo of translation with nucleotide resolution using ribosome profiling. Science324 (5924), 218223. doi: 10.1126/science.1168978

  • 116

    IwakawaH. O.TomariY. (2015). The functions of MicroRNAs: mRNA decay and translational repression. Trends Cell Biol.25 (11), 651665. doi: 10.1016/j.tcb.2015.07.011

  • 117

    IyerM. K.NiknafsY. S.MalikR.SinghalU.SahuA.HosonoY.et al. (2015). The landscape of long noncoding RNAs in the human transcriptome. Nat. Genet.47 (3), 199208. doi: 10.1038/ng.3192

  • 118

    JagannathanR.ThapaD.NicholsC. E.ShepherdD. L.StrickerJ. C.CrostonT. L.et al. (2015). Translational Rregulation of the Mitochondrial genome following redistribution of Mitochondrial MicroRNA in the diabetic heart. Circ. Cardiovasc. Genet.8 (6), 785802. doi: 10.1161/CIRCGENETICS.115.001067

  • 119

    JanowskiB. A.HuffmanK. E.SchwartzJ. C.RamR.NordsellR.ShamesD. S.et al. (2006). Involvement of AGO1 and AGO2 in mammalian transcriptional silencing. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol.13 (9), 787792. doi: 10.1038/nsmb1140

  • 120

    JeandardD.SmirnovaA.TarassovI.BarreyE.SmirnovA.EntelisN. (2019). Import of non-coding RNAs into human Mitochondria: a critical review and emerging approaches. Cells8 (3), E286. doi: 10.3390/cells8030286

  • 121

    JiZ.SongR. S.RegevA.StruhlK. (2015). Many lncRNAs, 5′ UTRs, and pseudogenes are translated and some are likely to express functional proteins. Elife4, e08890. doi: 10.7554/eLife.08890

  • 122

    JiangJ. D.YangJ. F.WangZ. F.WuG. Y.LiuF. (2013). TFAM is directly regulated by miR-23b in glioma. Oncol. Rep.30 (5), 21052110. doi: 10.3892/or.2013.2712

  • 123

    JoshiS. R.DhagiaV.GairheS.EdwardsJ. G.McMurtryI. F.GupteS. A. (2016). MicroRNA-140 is elevated and mitofusin-1 is downregulated in the right ventricle of the Sugen5416/hypoxia/normoxia model of pulmonary arterial hypertension. Am. J. Physiology-Heart Circulatory Physiol.311 (3), H689H698. doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00264.2016

  • 124

    JourdainA. A.KoppenM.WydroM.RodleyC. D.LightowlersR. N.Chrzanowska-LightowlersZ. M.et al. (2013). GRSF1 Regulates RNA Processing in Mitochondrial RNA Granules. Cell Metab.17 (3), 399410. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2013.02.005

  • 125

    KangT.LuW.XuW.AndersonL.BacanamwoM.ThompsonW.et al. (2013). MicroRNA-27 (miR-27) targets prohibitin and impairs adipocyte differentiation and mitochondrial function in human adipose-derived stem cells. J. Biol. Chem.288 (48), 3439434402. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M113.514372

  • 126

    KarbienerM.PisaniD. F.FrontiniA.OberreiterL. M.LangE.VegiopoulosA.et al. (2014). MicroRNA-26 family is required for human adipogenesis and drives characteristics of brown adipocytes. Stem Cells32 (6), 15781590. doi: 10.1002/stem.1603

  • 127

    KearseM. G.WiluszJ. E. (2017). Non-AUG translation: a new start for protein synthesis in eukaryotes. Genes Dev.31 (17), 17171731. doi: 10.1101/gad.305250.117

  • 128

    KimS.RheeJ. K.YooH. J.LeeH. J.LeeE. J.LeeJ. W.et al. (2015). Bioinformatic and metabolomic analysis reveals miR-155 regulates thiamine level in breast cancer. Cancer Lett.357 (2), 488497. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2014.11.058

  • 129

    KimS. J.XiaoJ. L.WanJ. X.CohenP.YenK. (2017a). Mitochondrially derived peptides as novel regulators of metabolism. J. Physiology-London595 (21), 66136621. doi: 10.1113/Jp274472

  • 130

    KimK. M.NohJ. H.AbdelmohsenK.GorospeM. (2017b). Mitochondrial noncoding RNA transport. Bmb Rep.50 (4), 164174. doi: 10.5483/bmbrep.2017.50.4.013

  • 131

    KimS. J.MehtaH. H.WanJ.KuehnemannC.ChenJ.CohenP. (2018). Mitochondrial peptides modulate mitochondrial function during cellular senescence. Aging (Albany NY)10 (6), 12391256. doi: 10.18632/aging.101463

  • 132

    KissT.MarshallsayC.FilipowiczW. (1992). 7-2/MRP RNAs in plant and mammalian cells: association with higher order structures in the nucleolus. EMBO J.11 (10), 37373746. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1992.tb05459.x

  • 133

    KlemmB. P.WuN.ChenY.LiuX.KaitanyK. J.HowardM. J.et al. (2016). The diversity of ribonuclease P: protein and RNA catalysts with analogous biological functions. Biomolecules6 (2), E27. doi: 10.3390/biom6020027

  • 134

    KolesnikovaO. A.EntelisN. S.MireauH.FoxT. D.MartinR. P.TarassovI. A. (2000). Suppression of mutations in mitochondrial DNA by tRNAs imported from the cytoplasm. Science289 (5486), 19311933. doi: 10.1126/science.289.5486.1931

  • 135

    KongL.ZhouX.WuY.WangY.ChenL.LiP.et al. (2015). Targeting HOTAIR induces mitochondria related apoptosis and inhibits tumor growth in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma in vitro and in vivo. Curr. Mol. Med.15 (10), 952960. doi: 10.2174/1566524016666151123112716

  • 136

    KoppF.MendellJ. T. (2018). Functional classification and experimental dissection of long noncoding RNAs. Cell172 (3), 393407. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.01.011

  • 137

    KozomaraA.BirgaoanuM.Griffiths-JonesS. (2019). miRBase: from microRNA sequences to function. Nucleic Acids Res.47 (D1), D155D162. doi: 10.1093/nar/gky1141

  • 138

    KrenB. T.WongP. Y. P.SarverA.ZhangX. X.ZengY.SteerC. J. (2009). microRNAs identified in highly purified liver-derived mitochondria may play a role in apoptosis. RNA Biol.6 (1), 6572. doi: 10.4161/rna.6.1.7534

  • 139

    KumarswamyR.BautersC.VolkmannI.MauryF.FetischJ.HolzmannA.et al. (2014). Circulating long noncoding RNA, LIPCAR, predicts survival in patients with heart failure. Circ. Res.114 (10), 15691575. doi: 10.1161/Circresaha.114.303915

  • 140

    KurtzC. L.PeckB. C. E.FanninE. E.BeysenC.MiaoJ.LandstreetS. R.et al. (2014). MicroRNA-29 Fine-Tunes the expression of key FOXA2-activated lipid metabolism genes and is dysregulated in animal models of insulin resistance and diabetes. Diabetes63 (9), 31413148. doi: 10.2337/db13-1015

  • 141

    KusunokiJ.KanataniA.MollerD. E. (2006). Modulation of fatty acid metabolism as a potential approach to the treatment of obesity and the metabolic syndrome. Endocrine29 (1), 91100. doi: 10.1385/Endo:29:1:91

  • 142

    LandererE.VillegasJ.BurzioV. A.OliveiraL.VillotaC.LopezC.et al. (2011). Nuclear localization of the mitochondrial ncRNAs in normal and cancer cells. Cell. Oncol.34 (4), 297305. doi: 10.1007/s13402-011-0018-8

  • 143

    LanzR. B.McKennaN. J.OnateS. A.AlbrechtU.WongJ. M.TsaiS. Y.et al. (1999). A steroid receptor coactivator, SRA, functions as an RNA and is present in an SRC-1 complex. Cell97 (1), 1727. doi: 10.1016/S0092-8674(00)80711-4

  • 144

    LeM. T. N.TehC.Shyh-ChangN.XieH. M.ZhouB. Y.KorzhV.et al. (2009). MicroRNA-125b is a novel negative regulator of p53. Genes Dev.23 (7), 862876. doi: 10.1101/gad.1767609

  • 145

    LechnerM.RossmanithW.HartmannR. K.TholkenC.GutmannB.GiegeP.et al. (2015). Distribution of Ribonucleoprotein and Protein-Only RNase P in Eukarya. Mol. Biol. Evol.32 (12), 31863193. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msv187

  • 146

    LeeD. Y.ClaytonD. A. (1997). RNase mitochondrial RNA processing correctly cleaves a novel R loop at the mitochondrial DNA leading-strand origin of replication. Genes Dev.11 (5), 582592. doi: 10.1101/gad.11.5.582

  • 147

    LeeC.ZengJ.DrewB. G.SallamT.Martin-MontalvoA.WanJ. X.et al. (2015). The Mitochondrial-derived peptide MOTS-c promotes metabolic Homeostasis and reduces obesity and insulin resistance. Cell Metab.21 (3), 443454. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2015.02.009

  • 148

    LeeH.TakH.ParkS. J.JoY. K.ChoD. H.LeeE. K. (2017). microRNA-200a-3p enhances mitochondrial elongation by targeting mitochondrial fission factor. Bmb Rep.50 (4), 214219. doi: 10.5483/BMBRep.2017.50.4.006

  • 149

    LeeJ. T. (2012). Epigenetic regulation by long noncoding RNAs. Science338 (6113), 14351439. doi: 10.1126/science.1231776

  • 150

    LeivonenS. K.RokkaA.OstlingP.KohonenP.CorthalsG. L.KallioniemiO.et al. (2011). Identification of miR-193b targets in breast cancer cells and systems biological analysis of their functional impact. Mol. Cell. Proteomics10 (7), M110.005322. doi: 10.1074/mcp.M110.005322

  • 151

    LeucciE.VendraminR.SpinazziM.LauretteP.FiersM.WoutersJ.et al. (2016). Melanoma addiction to the long non-coding RNA SAMMSON. Nature531 (7595), 518522. doi: 10.1038/nature17161

  • 152

    LiJ. C.DonathS.LiY. R.QinD.PrabhakarB. S.LiP. F. (2010). miR-30 regulates mitochondrial fission through targeting p53 and the dynamin-related Protein-1 pathway. PloS Genet.6 (1), e1000795. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000795

  • 153

    LiX.WangF. S.WuZ. Y.LinJ. L.LanW. B.LinJ. H. (2014). MicroRNA-19b targets Mfn1 to inhibit Mfn1-induced apoptosis in osteosarcoma cells. Neoplasma61 (3), 265273. doi: 10.4149/neo_2014_034

  • 154

    LiY.PengT.LiL.WangX.DuanR.GaoH.et al. (2014). MicroRNA-9 regulates neural apoptosis in methylmalonic acidemia via targeting BCL2L11. Int. J. Dev. Neurosci.36, 1924. doi: 10.1016/j.ijdevneu.2014.04.005

  • 155

    LiW.ZhangX. L.ZhuangH. X.ChenH. G.ChenY. Q.TianW. L.et al. (2014). MicroRNA-137 is a novel hypoxia-responsive MicroRNA that inhibits mitophagy via regulation of two mitophagy receptors FUNDC1 and NIX. J. Biol. Chem.289 (15), 1069110701. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M113.537050

  • 156

    LiH. J.LiX.PangH.PanJ. J.XieX. J.ChenW. (2015). Long non-coding RNA UCA1 promotes glutamine metabolism by targeting miR-16 in human bladder cancer. Jpn. J. Clin. Oncol.45 (11), 10551063. doi: 10.1093/jjco/hyv132

  • 157

    LiX.WangH.YaoB.XuW.ChenJ.ZhouX. (2016). lncRNA H19/miR-675 axis regulates cardiomyocyte apoptosis by targeting VDAC1 in diabetic cardiomyopathy. Sci. Rep.6, 36340. doi: 10.1038/srep36340

  • 158

    LiH. J.SunX. M.LiZ. K.YinQ. W.PangH.PanJ. J.et al. (2017). LncRNA uca1 promotes mitochondrial function of bladder cancer via the MiR-195/ARL2 signaling pathway. Cell Physiol. Biochem.43 (6), 25482561. doi: 10.1159/000484507

  • 159

    LinC. L.WangY. T.YangW. Z.HsiaoY. Y.YuanH. S. (2012). Crystal structure of human polynucleotide phosphorylase: insights into its domain function in RNA binding and degradation. Nucleic Acids Res.40 (9), 41464157. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkr1281

  • 160

    LinY. F.XiaoM. H.ChenH. X.MengY.ZhaoN.YangL.et al. (2019). A novel mitochondrial micropeptide MPM enhances mitochondrial respiratory activity and promotes myogenic differentiation. Cell Death Dis.10 (7), 528. doi: 10.1038/s41419-019-1767-y

  • 161

    LiuJ.RivasF. V.WohlschlegelJ.YatesJ. R.3rdParkerR.HannonG. J. (2005). A role for the P-body component GW182 in microRNA function. Nat. Cell Biol.7 (12), 12611266. doi: 10.1038/ncb1333

  • 162

    LiuJ.LiangX.ZhouD.LaiL.XiaoL.LiuL.et al. (2016). Coupling of mitochondrial function and skeletal muscle fiber type by a miR-499/Fnip1/AMPK circuit. EMBO Mol. Med.8 (10), 12121228. doi: 10.15252/emmm.201606372

  • 163

    LiuB.ShenE. D.LiaoM. M.HuY. B.WuK.YangP.et al. (2016). Expression and mechanisms of long non-coding RNA genes MEG3 and ANRIL in gallbladder cancer. Tumour Biol.37 (7), 98759886. doi: 10.1007/s13277-016-4863-y

  • 164

    LiuT.WangZ.ZhouR.LiangW. (2019). Focally amplified lncRNA on chromosome 1 regulates apoptosis of esophageal cancer cells via DRP1 and mitochondrial dynamics. IUBMB Life71 (2), 254260. doi: 10.1002/iub.1971

  • 165

    Lobos-GonzalezL.SilvaV.ArayaM.RestovicF.EcheniqueJ.Oliveira-CruzL.et al. (2016). Targeting antisense mitochondrial ncRNAs inhibits murine melanoma tumor growth and metastasis through reduction in survival and invasion factors. Oncotarget7 (36), 5833158350. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.11110

  • 166

    LongB.WangK.LiN.MurtazaI.XiaoJ. Y.FanY. Y.et al. (2013). miR-761 regulates the mitochondrial network by targeting mitochondrial fission factor. Free Radical Biol. Med.65, 371379. doi: 10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2013.07.009

  • 167

    LongJ. Y.BadalS. S.YeZ. C.WangY.AyangaB. A.GalvanD. L.et al. (2016). Long noncoding RNA Tug1 regulates mitochondrial bioenergetics in diabetic nephropathy. J. Clin. Invest.126 (11), 42054218. doi: 10.1172/Jci87927

  • 168

    LungB.ZemannA.MadejM. J.SchuelkeM.TechritzS.RufS.et al. (2006). Identification of small non-coding RNAs from mitochondria and chloroplasts. Nucleic Acids Res.34 (14), 38423852. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkl448

  • 169

    LuoY.NaZ.SlavoffS. A. (2018). P-Bodies: composition, properties, and functions. Biochemistry57 (17), 24242431. doi: 10.1021/acs.biochem.7b01162

  • 170

    MagalhaesP. J.AndreuA. L.SchonE. A. (1998). Evidence for the presence of 5S rRNA in mammalian mitochondria. Mol. Biol. Cell9 (9), 23752382. doi: 10.1091/mbc.9.9.2375

  • 171

    MakarewichC. A.BaskinK. K.MunirA. Z.BezprozvannayaS.SharmaG.KhemtongC.et al. (2018). MOXI is a mitochondrial micropeptide that enhances fatty acid beta-oxidation. Cell Rep.23 (13), 37013709. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.05.058

  • 172

    MarchiS.LupiniL.PatergnaniS.RimessiA.MissiroliS.BonoraM.et al. (2013). Downregulation of the mitochondrial calcium uniporter by cancer-related miR-25. Curr. Biol.23 (1), 5863. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.11.026

  • 173

    MatsuiM.CoreyD. R. (2017). Non-coding RNAs as drug targets. Nat. Rev. Drug Discovery16 (3), 167179. doi: 10.1038/nrd.2016.117

  • 174

    MatsumotoA.PasutA.MatsumotoM.YamashitaR.FungJ.MonteleoneE.et al. (2017). mTORC1 and muscle regeneration are regulated by the LINC00961-encoded SPAR polypeptide. Nature541 (7636), 228232. doi: 10.1038/nature21034

  • 175

    MaxwellE. S.FournierM. J. (1995). The small nucleolar RNAs. Annu. Rev. Biochem.64, 897934. doi: 10.1146/annurev.bi.64.070195.004341

  • 176

    McKenzieA. J.HoshinoD.HongN. H.ChaD. J.FranklinJ. L.CoffeyR. J.et al. (2016). KRAS-MEK signaling controls ago2 sorting into exosomes. Cell Rep.15 (5), 978987. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2016.03.085

  • 177

    MengF.HensonR.Wehbe-JanekH.GhoshalK.JacobS. T.PatelT. (2007). MicroRNA-21 regulates expression of the PTEN tumor suppressor gene in human hepatocellular cancer. Gastroenterology133 (2), 647658. doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2007.05.022

  • 178

    MercerT. R.MattickJ. S. (2013). Structure and function of long noncoding RNAs in epigenetic regulation. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol.20 (3), 300307. doi: 10.1038/nsmb.2480

  • 179

    MercerT. R.NephS.DingerM. E.CrawfordJ.SmithM. A.ShearwoodA. M. J.et al. (2011). The human Mitochondrial transcriptome. Cell146 (4), 645658. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2011.06.051

  • 180

    MerseyB. D.JinP.DannerD. J. (2005). Human microRNA (miR29b) expression controls the amount of branched chain alpha-ketoacid dehydrogenase complex in a cell. Hum. Mol. Genet.14 (22), 33713377. doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddi368

  • 181

    MeseguerS.Martinez-ZamoraA.Garcia-ArumiE.AndreuA. L.ArmengodM. E. (2015). The ROS-sensitive microRNA-9/9* controls the expression of mitochondrial tRNA-modifying enzymes and is involved in the molecular mechanism of MELAS syndrome. Hum. Mol. Gen.24 (1), 167184. doi: 10.1093/hmg/ddu427

  • 182

    MohamedJ. S.HajiraA.PardoP. S.BoriekA. M. (2014). MicroRNA-149 inhibits PARP-2 and promotes mitochondrial biogenesis via SIRT-1/PGC-1alpha network in skeletal muscle. Diabetes63 (5), 15461559. doi: 10.2337/db13-1364

  • 183

    MolitorisJ. K.McCollK. S.DistelhorstC. W. (2011). Glucocorticoid-mediated repression of the oncogenic microRNA cluster miR-17~92 contributes to the induction of Bim and initiation of apoptosis. Mol. Endocrinol.25 (3), 409420. doi: 10.1210/me.2010-0402

  • 184

    MontoyaJ.GainesG. L.AttardiG. (1983). The pattern of transcription of the human mitochondrial rRNA genes reveals two overlapping transcription units. Cell34 (1), 151159. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(83)90145-9

  • 185

    MoritaS.HoriiT.KimuraM.HatadaI. (2013). MiR-184 regulates insulin secretion through repression of Slc25a22. Peerj1, e162. doi: 10.7717/peerj.162

  • 186

    MorrisD. R.GeballeA. P. (2000). Upstream open reading frames as regulators of mRNA translation. Mol. Cell. Biol.20 (23), 86358642. doi: 10.1128/Mcb.20.23.8635-8642.2000

  • 187

    MottJ. L.KobayashiS.BronkS. F.GoresG. J. (2007). mir-29 regulates Mcl-1 protein expression and apoptosis. Oncogene26 (42), 61336140. doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1210436

  • 188

    MuzumdarR. H.HuffmanD. M.AtzmonG.BuettnerC.CobbL. J.FishmanS.et al. (2009). Humanin: a novel central regulator of peripheral insulin action. PloS One4 (7), e6334. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006334

  • 189

    NashineS.CohenP.NesburnA. B.KuppermannB. D.KenneyM. C. (2018). Characterizing the protective effects of SHLP2, a mitochondrial-derived peptide, in macular degeneration. Sci. Rep.8, 15175. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-33290-5

  • 190

    NishiH.OnoK.IwanagaY.HorieT.NagaoK.TakemuraG.et al. (2010). MicroRNA-15b modulates cellular ATP levels and degenerates mitochondria via Arl2 in neonatal rat cardiac myocytes. J. Biol. Chem.285 (7), 49204930. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M109.082610

  • 191

    NohJ. H.KimK. M.AbdelmohsenK.YoonJ. H.PandaA. C.MunkR.et al. (2016). HuR and GRSF1 modulate the nuclear export and mitochondrial localization of the lncRNA RMRP. Genes Dev.30 (10), 12241239. doi: 10.1101/gad.276022.115

  • 192

    NollerH. F.LancasterL.MohanS.ZhouJ. (2017). Ribosome structural dynamics in translocation: yet another functional role for ribosomal RNA. Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics. 50, e12. doi: 10.1017/S0033583517000117

  • 193

    OhY. K.BacharA. R.ZachariasD. G.KimS. G.WanJ. X.CobbL. J.et al. (2011). Humanin preserves endothelial function and prevents atherosclerotic plaque progression in hypercholesterolemic ApoE deficient mice. Atherosclerosis219 (1), 6573. doi: 10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2011.06.038

  • 194

    OjalaD.MontoyaJ.AttardiG. (1981). tRNA punctuation model of RNA processing in human mitochondria. Nature290 (5806), 470474. doi: 10.1038/290470a0

  • 195

    OriA.ToyamaB. H.HarrisM. S.BockT.IskarM.BorkP.et al. (2015). Integrated transcriptome and proteome analyses reveal organ-specific proteome deterioration in old rats. Cell Syst.1 (3), 224237. doi: 10.1016/j.cels.2015.08.012

  • 196

    OuyangY. B.LuY.YueS.GiffardR. G. (2012). miR-181 targets multiple Bcl-2 family members and influences apoptosis and mitochondrial function in astrocytes. Mitochondrion12 (2), 213219. doi: 10.1016/j.mito.2011.09.001

  • 197

    PagliariniD. J.CalvoS. E.ChangB.ShethS. A.VafaiS. B.OngS. E.et al. (2008). A mitochondrial protein compendium elucidates complex I disease biology. Cell134 (1), 112123. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2008.06.016

  • 198

    PearceS.NezichC. L.SpinazzolaA. (2013). Mitochondrial diseases: translation matters. Mol. Cell Neurosci.55, 112. doi: 10.1016/j.mcn.2012.08.013

  • 199

    PengY.CroceC. M. (2016). The role of MicroRNAs in human cancer. Signal Transduct. Target Ther.1, 15004. doi: 10.1038/sigtrans.2015.4

  • 200

    PengY.XiangH.ChenC.ZhengR.ChaiJ.PengJ.et al. (2013). MiR-224 impairs adipocyte early differentiation and regulates fatty acid metabolism. Int. J. Biochem. Cell Biol.45 (8), 15851593. doi: 10.1016/j.biocel.2013.04.029

  • 201

    PerteaM.ShumateA.PerteaG.VarabyouA.BreitwieserF. P.ChangY. C.et al. (2018). CHESS: a new human gene catalog curated from thousands of large-scale RNA sequencing experiments reveals extensive transcriptional noise. Genome Biol.19 (1), 208. doi: 10.1186/s13059-018-1590-2

  • 202

    PicklesS.VigieP.YouleR. J. (2018). Mitophagy and quality control mechanisms in mitochondrial maintenance. Curr. Biol.28 (4), R170R185. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.01.004

  • 203

    PrasanthK. V.SpectorD. L. (2007). Eukaryotic regulatory RNAs: an answer to the ‘genome complexity’ conundrum. Genes Dev.21 (1), 1142. doi: 10.1101/gad.1484207

  • 204

    PuissegurM. P.MazureN. M.BerteroT.PradelliL.GrossoS.Robbe-SermesantK.et al. (2011). miR-210 is overexpressed in late stages of lung cancer and mediates mitochondrial alterations associated with modulation of HIF-1 activity. Cell Death Differ.18 (3), 465478. doi: 10.1038/cdd.2010.119

  • 205

    PuranamR. S.AttardiG. (2001). The RNase P associated with HeLa cell mitochondria contains an essential RNA component identical in sequence to that of the nuclear RNase P. Mol. Cell. Biol.21 (2), 548561. doi: 10.1128/Mcb.21.2.548-561.2001

  • 206

    Quinones-LombranaA.BlancoJ. G. (2015). Chromosome 21-derived hsa-miR-155-5p regulates mitochondrial biogenesis by targeting Mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM). Biochim. Biophys. Acta1852 (7), 14201427. doi: 10.1016/j.bbadis.2015.04.004

  • 207

    RackhamO.ShearwoodA. M.MercerT. R.DaviesS. M.MattickJ. S.FilipovskaA. (2011). Long noncoding RNAs are generated from the mitochondrial genome and regulated by nuclear-encoded proteins. RNA17 (12), 20852093. doi: 10.1261/rna.029405.111

  • 208

    RackhamO.BuschJ. D.MaticS.SiiraS. J.KuznetsovaI.AtanassovI.et al. (2016). Hierarchical RNA processing is required for mitochondrial ribosome assembly. Cell Rep.16 (7), 18741890. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2016.07.031

  • 209

    RaganC.GoodallG. J.ShirokikhN. E.PreissT. (2019). Insights into the biogenesis and potential functions of exonic circular RNA. Sci. Rep.9 (1), 2048. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-37037-0

  • 210

    RedisR. S.VelaL. E.LuW. Q.de OliveiraJ. F.IvanC.Rodriguez-AguayoC.et al. (2016). Allele-Specific reprogramming of cancer metabolism by the long non-coding RNA CCAT2. Mol. Cell61 (4), 640640. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2016.02.006

  • 211

    RinnJ. L.ChangH. Y. (2012). Genome regulation by long noncoding RNAs. Annu. Rev. Biochem.81, 145166. doi: 10.1146/annurev-biochem-051410-092902. Vol 81.

  • 212

    RippoM. R.OlivieriF.MonsurroV.PrattichizzoF.AlbertiniM. C.ProcopioA. D. (2014). MitomiRs in human inflamm-aging: a hypothesis involving miR-181a, miR-34a and miR-146a. Exp. Gerontol.56, 154163. doi: 10.1016/j.exger.2014.03.002

  • 213

    RoS.MaH. Y.ParkC.OrtogeroN.SongR.HennigG. W.et al. (2013). The mitochondrial genome encodes abundant small noncoding RNAs. Cell Res.23 (6), 759774. doi: 10.1038/cr.2013.37

  • 214

    RossmanithW.TulloA.PotuschakT.KarwanR.SbisaE. (1995). Human mitochondrial tRNA processing. J. Biol. Chem.270 (21), 1288512891. doi: 10.1074/jbc.270.21.12885

  • 215

    RottiersV.NaarA. M. (2012). MicroRNAs in metabolism and metabolic disorders. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol.13 (4), 239250. doi: 10.1038/nrm3313

  • 216

    RubioM. A. T.RinehartJ. J.KrettB.Duvezin-CaubetS.ReichertA. S.SollD.et al. (2008). Mammalian mitochondria have the innate ability to import tRNAs by a mechanism distinct from protein import. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.105 (27), 91869191. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0804283105

  • 217

    Ruiz-OreraJ.MesseguerX.SubiranaJ. A.AlbaM. M. (2014). Long non-coding RNAs as a source of new peptides. Elife3, e03523. doi: 10.7554/eLife.03523

  • 218

    RussellA. P.WadaS.VerganiL.HockM. B.LamonS.LegerB.et al. (2013). Disruption of skeletal muscle mitochondrial network genes and miRNAs in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Neurobiol. Dis.49, 107117. doi: 10.1016/j.nbd.2012.08.015

  • 219

    SalinasT.DucheneA. M.DelageL.NilssonS.GlaserE.ZaepfelM.et al. (2006). The voltage-dependent anion channel, a major component of the tRNA import machinery in plant mitochondria. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. United States America103 (48), 1836218367. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0606449103

  • 220

    SalinasT.DucheneA. M.Marechal-DrouardL. (2008). Recent advances in tRNA mitochondrial import. Trends In Biochem. Sci.33 (7), 320329. doi: 10.1016/j.tibs.2008.04.010

  • 221

    SalzmanJ.GawadC.WangP. L.LacayoN.BrownP. O. (2012). Circular RNAs are the predominant transcript isoform from hundreds of human genes in diverse cell types. PloS One7 (2), e30733. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0030733

  • 222

    SchimmelP. (2018). The emerging complexity of the tRNA world: mammalian tRNAs beyond protein synthesis. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol.19 (1), 4558. doi: 10.1038/nrm.2017.77

  • 223

    SchmittM. E.ClaytonD. A. (1993). Nuclear RNase MRP is required for correct processing of pre-5.8S rRNA in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Mol. Cell Biol.13 (12), 79357941. doi: 10.1128/mcb.13.12.7935

  • 224

    SchneiderA. (2011). Mitochondrial tRNA import and its consequences for mitochondrial translation. Annu. Rev. Biochem.80, 10331053. doi: 10.1146/annurev-biochem-060109-092838

  • 225

    ShepherdD. L.HathawayQ. A.PintiM. V.NicholsC. E.DurrA. J.SreekumarS.et al. (2017). Exploring the mitochondrial microRNA import pathway through Polynucleotide Phosphorylase (PNPase). J. Mol. Cell. Cardiol.110, 1525. doi: 10.1016/j.yjmcc.2017.06.012

  • 226

    ShiQ. L.GibsonG. E. (2011). Up-regulation of the mitochondrial malate dehydrogenase by oxidative stress is mediated by miR-743a. J. Neurochem.118 (3), 440448. doi: 10.1111/j.1471-4159.2011.07333.x

  • 227

    ShiY. H.DownesM.XieW.KaoH. Y.OrdentlichP.TsaiC. C.et al. (2001). Sharp, an inducible cofactor that integrates nuclear receptor repression and activation. Genes Dev.15 (9), 11401151. doi: 10.1101/gad.871201

  • 228

    ShindeS.BhadraU. (2015). A complex genome-microRNA interplay in human mitochondria. BioMed. Res. Int.2015, 206382. doi: 10.1155/2015/206382

  • 229

    SimsekD.TiuG. C.FlynnR. A.ByeonG. W.LeppekK.XuA. F.et al. (2017). The Mammalian Ribo-interactome reveals ribosome functional diversity and heterogeneity. Cell169 (6), 10511065 e1018. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.05.022

  • 230

    SinghR.SainiN. (2012). Downregulation of BCL2 by miRNAs augments drug-induced apoptosis–a combined computational and experimental approach. J. Cell Sci.125 (Pt 6), 15681578. doi: 10.1242/jcs.095976

  • 231

    SiomiM. C.SatoK.PezicD.AravinA. A. (2011). PIWI-interacting small RNAs: the vanguard of genome defence. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol.12 (4), 246258. doi: 10.1038/nrm3089

  • 232

    SireyT. M.RobertsK.HaertyW.Bedoya-ReinaO.Rogatti-GranadosS.TanJ. Y.et al. (2019). The long non-coding RNA Cerox1 is a post transcriptional regulator of mitochondrial complex I catalytic activity. Elife8, e45051. doi: 10.7554/eLife.45051

  • 233

    SlavoffS. A.MitchellA. J.SchwaidA. G.CabiliM. N.MaJ.LevinJ. Z.et al. (2013). Peptidomic discovery of short open reading frame-encoded peptides in human cells. Nat. Chem. Biol.9 (1), 5964. doi: 10.1038/nchembio.1120

  • 234

    SmirnovA.TarassovI.Mager-HeckelA. M.LetzelterM.MartinR. P.KrasheninnikovI. A.et al. (2008). Two distinct structural elements of 5S rRNA are needed for its import into human mitochondria. Rna-a Publ. RNA Soc.14 (4), 749759. doi: 10.1261/rna.952208

  • 235

    SmirnovA.ComteC.Mager-HeckelA. M.AddisV.KrasheninnikovI. A.MartinR. P.et al. (2010). Mitochondrial Enzyme Rhodanese is essential for 5 S Ribosomal RNA import into human Mitochondria. J. Biol. Chem.285 (40), 3079230803. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M110.151183

  • 236

    SmirnovA.EntelisN.MartinR. P.TarassovI. (2011). Biological significance of 5S rRNA import into human mitochondria: role of ribosomal protein MRP-L18. Genes Dev.25 (12), 12891305. doi: 10.1101/gad.624711

  • 237

    SongM.RossiJ. J. (2017). Molecular mechanisms of Dicer: endonuclease and enzymatic activity. Biochem. J.474 (10), 16031618. doi: 10.1042/BCJ20160759

  • 238

    SoniM. S.RabagliaM. E.BhatnagarS.ShangJ.IlkayevaO.MynattR.et al. (2014). Downregulation of carnitine acyl-carnitine translocase by miRNAs 132 and 212 amplifies glucose-stimulated insulin secretion. Diabetes63 (11), 38053814. doi: 10.2337/db13-1677

  • 239

    SpinelliJ. B.HaigisM. C. (2018). The multifaceted contributions of mitochondria to cellular metabolism. Nat. Cell Biol.20 (7), 745754. doi: 10.10138/s41556-018-0124-1

  • 240

    SreekumarP. G.IshikawaK.SpeeC.MehtaH. H.WanJ. X.YenK.et al. (2016). The Mitochondrial-derived peptide humanin protects RPE cells from Oxidative stress, senescence, and Mitochondrial Dysfunction. Invest. Ophthalmol. Visual Sci.57 (3), 12381253. doi: 10.1167/iovs.15-17053

  • 241

    SripadaL.TomarD.PrajapatiP.SinghR.SinghA. K.SinghR. (2012). Systematic analysis of small RNAs associated with human mitochondria by deep sequencing: detailed analysis of mitochondrial associated miRNA. PloS One7 (9), e44873. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0044873

  • 242

    SteinC. S.JadiyaP.ZhangX. M.McLendonJ. M.AbouassalyG. M.WitmerN. H.et al. (2018). Mitoregulin: a lncRNA-Encoded microprotein that supports mitochondrial supercomplexes and respiratory efficiency. Cell Rep.23 (13), 37103720. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.06.002

  • 243

    StoneN.PangilinanF.MolloyA. M.ShaneB.ScottJ. M.UelandP. M.et al. (2011). Bioinformatic and genetic association analysis of MicroRNA target sites in one-carbon metabolism genes. PloS One6 (7), e21851. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0021851

  • 244

    SunY.LiM. (2019). New insights into long non-coding RNA MALAT1 in cancer and metastasis. Cancers (Basel).11 (2), 216. doi: 10.3390/cancers11020216

  • 245

    SunL. L.JiangB. G.LiW. T.ZouJ. J.ShiY. Q.LiuZ. M. (2011). MicroRNA-15a positively regulates insulin synthesis by inhibiting uncoupling protein-2 expression. Diabetes Res. Clin. Pract.91 (1), 94100. doi: 10.1016/j.diabres.2010.11.006

  • 246

    SunY. M.LinK. Y.ChenY. Q. (2013). Diverse functions of miR-125 family in different cell contexts. J. Hematol. Oncol.6, 6. doi: 10.1186/1756-8722-6-6

  • 247

    SzymanskiM.BarciszewskaM. Z.ZywickiM.BarciszewskiJ. (2003). Noncoding RNA transcripts. J. Appl. Gen.44 (1), 119.

  • 248

    TakH.KimJ.JayabalanA. K.LeeH.KangH.ChoD. H.et al. (2014). miR-27 regulates mitochondrial networks by directly targeting the mitochondrial fission factor. Exp. Mol. Med.46, e123. doi: 10.1038/emm.2014.73

  • 249

    TarassovI. A.MartinR. P. (1996). Mechanisms of tRNA import into yeast mitochondria: an overview. Biochimie78 (6), 502510. doi: 10.1016/0300-9084(96)84756-0

  • 250

    TarassovI.KamenskiP.KolesnikovaO.KarichevaO.MartinR. P.KrasheninnikovI. A.et al. (2007). Import of nuclear DNA-encoded RNAs into mitochondria and mitochondrial translation. Cell Cycle6 (20), 24732477. doi: 10.4161/cc.6.20.4783

  • 251

    TianT.LvX.PanG.LuY.ChenW.HeW.et al. (2019). Long Noncoding RNA MPRL promotes mitochondrial fission and cisplatin chemosensitivity via disruption of pre-miRNA processing. Clin. Cancer Res.25 (12), 36733688. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-18-2739

  • 252

    TibicheC.WangE. (2008). MicroRNA regulatory patterns on the human metabolic network. Open Syst. Biol. J.1, 18. doi: 10.2174/1876392800801010001

  • 253

    TilokaniL.NagashimaS.PaupeV.PrudentJ. (2018). Mitochondrial dynamics: overview of molecular mechanisms. Mitochondrial Dis.62 (3), 341360. doi: 10.1042/Ebc20170104

  • 254

    TsuchidaA.OhnoS.WuW. H.BorjiginN.FujitaK.AokiT.et al. (2011). miR-92 is a key oncogenic component of the miR-17-92 cluster in colon cancer. Cancer Sci.102 (12), 22642271. doi: 10.1111/j.1349-7006.2011.02081.x

  • 255

    UchidaS.DimmelerS. (2015). Long Noncoding RNAs in cardiovascular diseases. Circ. Res.116 (4), 737750. doi: 10.1161/Circresaha.116.302521

  • 256

    UlitskyI.BartelD. P. (2013). lincRNAs: genomics, evolution, and mechanisms. Cell154 (1), 2646. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.06.020

  • 257

    van HeeschS.WitteF.Schneider-LunitzV.SchulzJ. F.AdamiE.FaberA. B.et al. (2019). The translational landscape of the human heart. Cell178 (1), 242260. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.05.010

  • 258

    van RooijE.QuiatD.JohnsonB. A.SutherlandL. B.QiX. X.RichardsonJ. A.et al. (2009). A family of microRNAs encoded by myosin genes governs myosin expression and muscle performance. Dev. Cell17 (5), 662673. doi: 10.1016/j.devcel.2009.10.013

  • 259

    VargasJ. N. S.KarA. N.KowalakJ. A.GaleJ. R.AschrafiA.ChenC. Y.et al. (2016). Axonal localization and mitochondrial association of precursor microRNA 338. Cell. Mol. Life Sci.73 (22), 43274340. doi: 10.1007/s00018-016-2270-6

  • 260

    VasudevanS. (2012). Posttranscriptional upregulation by microRNAs. Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. RNA3 (3), 311330. doi: 10.1002/wrna.121

  • 261

    VendraminR.MarineJ. C.LeucciE. (2017). Non-coding RNAs: the dark side of nuclear-mitochondrial communication. EMBO J.36 (9), 11231133. doi: 10.15252/embj.201695546

  • 262

    VendraminR.VerheydenY.IshikawaH.GoedertL.NicolasE.SarafK.et al. (2018). SAMMSON fosters cancer cell fitness by concertedly enhancing mitochondrial and cytosolic translation. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol.25 (11), 1035103+. doi: 10.1038/s41594-018-0143-4

  • 263

    VidaurreS.FitzpatrickC.BurzioV. A.BrionesM.VillotaC.VillegasJ.et al. (2014). Down-regulation of the Antisense Mitochondrial Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) is a unique vulnerability of cancer cells and a potential target for cancer therapy. J. Biol. Chem.289 (39), 2718227198. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M114.558841

  • 264

    VillegasJ.ZarragaA. M.MullerI.MontecinosL.WernerE.BritoM.et al. (2000). A novel chimeric mitochondrial RNA localized in the nucleus of mouse sperm. DNA Cell Biol.19 (9), 579588. doi: 10.1089/104454900439809

  • 265

    VillegasJ.BurzioV.VillotaC.LandererE.MartinezR.SantanderM.et al. (2007). Expression of a novel non-coding mitochondrial RNA in human proliferating cells. Nucleic Acids Res.35 (21), 73367347. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkm863

  • 266

    VohwinkelC. U.LecuonaE.SunH.SommerN.VadaszI.ChandelN. S.et al. (2011). Elevated CO(2) levels cause mitochondrial dysfunction and impair cell proliferation. J. Biol. Chem.286 (43), 3706737076. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M111.290056

  • 267

    WallaceD. C. (2012). Mitochondria and cancer. Nat. Rev. Cancer12 (10), 685698. doi: 10.1038/nrc3365

  • 268

    WangZ.BurgeC. B. (2008). Splicing regulation: from a parts list of regulatory elements to an integrated splicing code. RNA14 (5), 802813. doi: 10.1261/rna.876308

  • 269

    WangX.WangX. (2006). Systematic identification of microRNA functions by combining target prediction and expression profiling. Nucleic Acids Res.34 (5), 16461652. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkl068

  • 270

    WangG.ChenH. W.OktayY.ZhangJ.AllenE. L.SmithG. M.et al. (2010). PNPASE regulates RNA import into Mitochondria. Cell142 (3), 456467. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2010.06.035

  • 271

    WangJ. X.JiaoJ. Q.LiQ. A.LongB.WangK.LiuJ. P.et al. (2011). miR-499 regulates mitochondrial dynamics by targeting calcineurin and dynamin-related protein-1. Nat. Med.17 (1), 71U243. doi: 10.1038/nm.2282

  • 272

    WangG.ShimadaE.ZhangJ.HongJ. S.SmithG. M.TeitellM. A.et al. (2012a). Correcting human mitochondrial mutations with targeted RNA import. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A.109 (13), 48404845. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1116792109

  • 273

    WangG.ShimadaE.KoehlerC. M.TeitellM. A. (2012b). PNPASE and RNA trafficking into mitochondria. Biochim. Biophys. Acta1819 (9-10), 9981007. doi: 10.1016/j.bbagrm.2011.10.001

  • 274

    WangK.LongB.JiaoJ. Q.WangJ. X.LiuJ. P.LiQ.et al. (2012). miR-484 regulates mitochondrial network through targeting Fis1. Nat. Commun.3, 781. doi: 10.1038/ncomms1770

  • 275

    WangK.LongB.ZhouL. Y.LiuF.ZhouQ. Y.LiuC. Y.et al. (2014). CARL lncRNA inhibits anoxia-induced mitochondrial fission and apoptosis in cardiomyocytes by impairing miR-539-dependent PHB2 downregulation. Nat. Commun.5, 3596. doi: 10.1038/ncomms4596

  • 276

    WangW. X.VisavadiyaN. P.PandyaJ. D.NelsonP. T.SullivanP. G.SpringerJ. E. (2015a). Mitochondria-associated microRNAs in rat hippocampus following traumatic brain injury. Exp. Neurol.265, 8493. doi: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2014.12.018

  • 277

    WangM.HuangT.LuoG.HuangC.XiaoX. Y.WangL.et al. (2015b). Long non-coding RNA MEG3 induces renal cell carcinoma cells apoptosis by activating the mitochondrial pathway. J. Huazhong Univ. Sci. Technol. Med. Sci.35 (4), 541545. doi: 10.1007/s11596-015-1467-5

  • 278

    WangD.EraslanB.WielandT.HallstromB.HopfT.ZolgD. P.et al. (2019). A deep proteome and transcriptome abundance atlas of 29 healthy human tissues. Mol. Syst. Biol.15 (2), e8503. doi: 10.15252/msb.20188503

  • 279

    WilfredB. R.WangW. X.NelsonP. T. (2007). Energizing miRNA research: a review of the role of miRNAs in lipid metabolism, with a prediction that miR-103/107 regulates human metabolic pathways. Mol. Genet. Metab.91 (3), 209217. doi: 10.1016/j.ymgme.2007.03.011

  • 280

    WillersI. M.Martinez-ReyesI.Martinez-DiezM.CuezvaJ. M. (2012). miR-127-5p targets the 3′UTR of human beta-F1-ATPase mRNA and inhibits its translation. Biochim. Biophys. Acta1817 (5), 838848. doi: 10.1016/j.bbabio.2012.03.005

  • 281

    WuC.GongY.SunA.ZhangY.ZhangC.ZhangW.et al. (2013). The human MTHFR rs4846049 polymorphism increases coronary heart disease risk through modifying miRNA binding. Nutr. Metab. Cardiovasc. Dis.23 (7), 693698. doi: 10.1016/j.numecd.2012.02.009

  • 282

    WuH.SunH.LiangX.LimaW. F.CrookeS. T. (2013). Human RNase H1 is associated with protein p32 and is involved in mitochondrial pre-rRNA processing. PloS One8 (8), e71006. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0071006

  • 283

    WuY. T.HuangC.MengX. M.LiJ. (2015). Long Noncoding RNA MALAT1: Insights into its Biogenesis and Implications in Human Disease. Curr. Pharm. Design21 (34), 50175028. doi: 10.2174/1381612821666150724115625

  • 284

    WuK. M.ZhaoZ. X.XiaoY. L.PengJ. J.ChenJ. H.HeY. L. (2016). Roles of mitochondrial transcription factor A and microRNA-590-3p in the development of colon cancer. Mol. Med. Rep.14 (6), 54755480. doi: 10.3892/mmr.2016.5955

  • 285

    XuY.FangF.ZhangJ.JossonS.St ClairW. H.St ClairD. K. (2010). miR-17* suppresses tumorigenicity of prostate cancer by inhibiting mitochondrial antioxidant enzymes. PloS One5 (12), e14356. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0014356

  • 286

    XuT.ZhangK.ShiJ.HuangB.WangX.QianK.et al. (2019). MicroRNA-940 inhibits glioma progression by blocking mitochondrial folate metabolism through targeting of MTHFD2. Am. J. Cancer Res.9 (2), 250269.

  • 287

    YadavS.PandeyA.ShuklaA.TalwelkarS. S.KumarA.PantA. B.et al. (2011). miR-497 and miR-302b regulate ethanol-induced neuronal cell death through BCL2 protein and cyclin D2. J. Biol. Chem.286 (43), 3734737357. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M111.235531

  • 288

    YamakuchiM.FerlitoM.LowensteinC. J. (2008). miR-34a repression of SIRT1 regulates apoptosis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A105 (36), 1342113426. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0801613105

  • 289

    YamamotoH.MorinoK.NishioY.UgiS.YoshizakiT.KashiwagiA.et al. (2012). MicroRNA-494 regulates mitochondrial biogenesis in skeletal muscle through mitochondrial transcription factor A and Forkhead box j3. Am. J. Physiol. Endocrinol. Metab.303 (12), E1419E1427. doi: 10.1152/ajpendo.00097.2012

  • 290

    YangK. C.YamadaK. A.PatelA. Y.TopkaraV. K.GeorgeI.CheemaF. H.et al. (2014). Deep RNA sequencing reveals dynamic regulation of Myocardial noncoding RNAs in failing human heart and remodeling with mechanical circulatory support. Circulation129 (9), 10091021. doi: 10.1161/Circulationaha.113.003863

  • 291

    YaoJ.ZhouE. X.WangY. C.XuF.ZhangD. H.ZhongD. W. (2014). microRNA-200a inhibits cell proliferation by targeting mitochondrial transcription factor A in breast cancer. DNA and Cell Biol.33 (5), 291300. doi: 10.1089/dna.2013.2132

  • 292

    YaoQ.ChenY. Q.ZhouX. (2019). The roles of microRNAs in epigenetic regulation. Curr. Opin. In Chem. Biol.51, 1117. doi: 10.1016/j.cbpa.2019.01.024

  • 293

    YeasminF.YadaT.AkimitsuN. (2018). Micropeptides encoded in transcripts previously identified as long noncoding RNAs: a new chapter in transcriptomics and proteomics. Front. In Genet.9, 144. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2018.00144

  • 294

    YenK.LeeC.MehtaH.CohenP. (2013). The emerging role of the mitochondrial-derived peptide humanin in stress resistance. J. Mol. Endocrinol.50 (1), R11R19. doi: 10.1530/Jme-12-0203

  • 295

    YoshionariS.KoikeT.YokogawaT.NishikawaK.UedaT.MiuraK.et al. (1994). Existence of nuclear-encoded 5S-rRNA in bovine mitochondria. FEBS Lett.338 (2), 137142. doi: 10.1016/0014-5793(94)80351-x

  • 296

    ZelenkaJ.AlanL.JezekP. (2012). Import of fluorescent RNA into mitochondria of living cells. Biochim. Et Biophys. Acta-Bioenerg.1817, S143S143. doi: 10.1016/j.bbabio.2012.06.377

  • 297

    ZhaiH.SongB.XuX.ZhuW.JuJ. (2013). Inhibition of autophagy and tumor growth in colon cancer by miR-502. Oncogene32 (12), 15701579. doi: 10.1038/onc.2012.167

  • 298

    ZhangJ. G.WangJ. J.ZhaoF.LiuQ.JiangK.YangG. H. (2010). MicroRNA-21 (miR-21) represses tumor suppressor PTEN and promotes growth and invasion in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Clin. Chim. Acta411 (11-12), 846852. doi: 10.1016/j.cca.2010.02.074

  • 299

    ZhangX.ZuoX.YangB.LiZ.XueY.ZhouY.et al. (2014). MicroRNA directly enhances mitochondrial translation during muscle differentiation. Cell158 (3), 607619. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2014.05.047

  • 300

    ZhangR.ZhouH. M.JiangL.MaoY. R.CuiX. M.XieB.et al. (2016). MiR-195 dependent roles of mitofusin2 in the mitochondrial dysfunction of hippocampal neurons in SAMP8 mice. Brain Res.1652, 135143. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2016.09.047

  • 301

    ZhangB.YiJ.ZhangC. L.ZhangQ. H.XuJ. F.ShenH. Q.et al. (2017). MiR-146a inhibits proliferation and induces apoptosis in murine osteoblastic MC3T3-E1 by regulating Bcl2. Eur. Rev. Med. Pharmacol. Sci.21 (17), 37543762.

  • 302

    ZhangJ.YuL. M.XuY. L.LiuY.LiZ.XueX. D.et al. (2018). Long noncoding RNA upregulated in hypothermia treated cardiomyocytes protects against myocardial infarction through improving mitochondrial function. Int. J. Cardiol.266, 213217. doi: 10.1016/j.ijcard.2017.12.097

  • 303

    ZhangW. C.WellsJ. M.ChowK. H.HuangH.YuanM.SaxenaT.et al. (2019). miR-147b-mediated TCA cycle dysfunction and pseudohypoxia initiate drug tolerance to EGFR inhibitors in lung adenocarcinoma. Nat. Metab.1 (4), 460474. doi: 10.1038/s42255-019-0052-9

  • 304

    ZhaoS. T.ZhaoL.LiJ. H. (2013). Neuroprotective peptide humanin inhibits inflammatory response in Astrocytes induced by Lipopolysaccharide. Neurochem. Res.38 (3), 581588. doi: 10.1007/s11064-012-0951-6

  • 305

    ZhaoY.LiH.FangS.KangY.WuW.HaoY.et al. (2016). NONCODE 2016: an informative and valuable data source of long non-coding RNAs. Nucleic Acids Res.44 (D1), D203D208. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkv1252

  • 306

    ZhaoY.SunL.WangR. R.HuJ. F.CuiJ. (2018). The effects of mitochondria-associated long noncoding RNAs in cancer mitochondria: new players in an old arena. Crit. Rev. Oncol. Hematol.131, 7682. doi: 10.1016/j.critrevonc.2018.08.005

  • 307

    ZhaoY. J.LiuS. S.ZhouL.LiX. L.MengY.LiY.et al. (2019). Aberrant shuttling of long noncoding RNAs during the mitochondria-nuclear crosstalk in hepatocellular carcinoma cells. Am. J. Cancer Res.9 (5), 9991008.

  • 308

    ZhengS. Q.LiY. X.ZhangY.LiX.TangH. (2011). MiR-101 regulates HSV-1 replication by targeting ATP5B. Antiviral Res.89 (3), 219226. doi: 10.1016/j.antiviral.2011.01.008

  • 309

    ZhengP.XiongQ.WuY.ChenY.ChenZ.FlemingJ.et al. (2015). Quantitative proteomics analysis reveals novel insights into mechanisms of action of long noncoding RNA Hox transcript antisense intergenic RNA (HOTAIR) in HeLa cells. Mol. Cell Proteomics14 (6), 14471463. doi: 10.1074/mcp.M114.043984

  • 310

    ZhengQ.LiuP. P.GaoG.YuanJ. P.WangP. F.HuangJ. L.et al. (2019). Mitochondrion-processed TERC regulates senescence without affecting telomerase activities. Protein Cell10 (9), 631648. doi: 10.1007/s13238-019-0612-5

  • 311

    ZhouX. H.ZhangL. S.ZhengB. C.YanY. C.ZhangY.XieH. Y.et al. (2016). MicroRNA-761 is upregulated in hepatocellular carcinoma and regulates tumorigenesis by targeting Mitofusin-2. Cancer Sci.107 (4), 424432. doi: 10.1111/cas.12904

  • 312

    ZhuH.WuH.LiuX. P.LiB. A.ChenY.RenX. C.et al. (2009). Regulation of autophagy by a beclin 1-targeted microRNA, miR-30a, in cancer cells. Autophagy5 (6), 816823. doi: 10.4161/auto.9064

  • 313

    ZhuH.LiX.SongY.ZhangP.XiaoY.XingY. (2015). Long non-coding RNA ANRIL is up-regulated in bladder cancer and regulates bladder cancer cell proliferation and apoptosis through the intrinsic pathway. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun.467 (2), 223228. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2015.10.002

Summary

Keywords

mitochondria, ncRNA, lncRNA, miRNA, mtDNA, micropeptide

Citation

Gusic M and Prokisch H (2020) ncRNAs: New Players in Mitochondrial Health and Disease?. Front. Genet. 11:95. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2020.00095

Received

05 November 2019

Accepted

28 January 2020

Published

28 February 2020

Volume

11 - 2020

Edited by

Nejat Dalay, Istanbul University, Turkey

Reviewed by

Girdhari Lal, National Centre for Cell Science, India; Silvio Zaina, University of Guanajuato, Mexico

Updates

Copyright

*Correspondence: Holger Prokisch,

This article was submitted to Epigenomics and Epigenetics, a section of the journal Frontiers in Genetics

Disclaimer

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Outline

Figures

Cite article

Copy to clipboard


Export citation file


Share article

Article metrics