HiMoRNA: A Comprehensive Database of Human lncRNAs Involved in Genome-Wide Epigenetic Regulation

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play an important role in genome regulation. Specifically, many lncRNAs interact with chromatin, recruit epigenetic complexes and in this way affect large-scale gene expression programs. However, the experimental data about lncRNA-chromatin interactions is still limited. The majority of experimental protocols do not provide any insight into the mechanics of lncRNA-based genome-wide epigenetic regulation. Here we present the HiMoRNA (Histone-Modifying RNA) database, a resource containing correlated lncRNA–epigenetic changes in specific genomic locations genome-wide. HiMoRNA integrates a large amount of multi-omics data to characterize the effects of lncRNA on epigenetic modifications and gene expression. The current release of HiMoRNA includes more than five million associations in humans for ten histone modifications in multiple genomic loci and 4145 lncRNAs. HiMoRNA provides a user-friendly interface to facilitate browsing, searching and retrieving of lncRNAs associated with epigenetic profiles of various chromatin loci. Analysis of the HiMoRNA data suggests that several lncRNA including JPX might be involved not only in regulation of XIST locus but also in direct establishment or maintenance of X-chromosome inactivation. We believe that HiMoRNA is a convenient and valuable resource that can provide valuable biological insights and greatly facilitate functional annotation of lncRNAs.