Non-Coding RNA as Biomarkers for Type 2 Diabetes Development and Clinical Management

Diabetes, a metabolic disease characterized by high blood glucose and other complications, has undefined causes and multiple risk factors, including inappropriate diet, unhealthy lifestyles, and genetic predisposition. The two most distinguished types of diabetes are type 1 and type 2 diabetes, resulting from the autoimmune impairment of insulin-generating pancreatic β cells and insulin insensitivity, respectively. Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), a cohort of RNAs with little transcriptional value, have been found to exert substantial importance in epigenetic and posttranscriptional modulation of gene expression such as messenger RNA (mRNA) silencing. This review mainly focuses on the pathology of type 2 diabetes (T2D) and ncRNAs as potential biomarkers in T2D development and clinical management. We consolidate the pathogenesis, diagnosis, and current treatments of T2D, and present the existing evidence on changes in multiple types of ncRNAs in response to various pathological changes and dysfunctions in different stages of T2D.