Opening Editorial for Non-coding RNA Investigation

I am extremely excited to announce the launch of Non-coding RNA Investigation, an international, open access, peer-reviewed scientific journal for presenting and discussing frontiers in non-coding RNA. This journal will cover all basic, clinical and translational research about non-coding RNAs and their regulatory roles in health and disease.

Non-coding RNAs account for approximately 98% of the entire genome according to the genome-wide transcriptional studies. These ever-growing list of non-coding RNAs has been found to play essential roles in biological and pathological processes and their dysregulation contributes to a variety of diseases. In addition, non-coding RNAs have been found to exist in body fluids in a stable form, making them as attractive candidate biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis for diseases. Among them, microRNA and long non-coding RNA are widely investigated. Recently, circular RNA and cncRNA have achieved increasing attention. Interestingly, non-coding RNAs have also been found to be present in extracellular vesicles, opening a new area for intracellular communication and development of novel therapeutics. Last but not least, non-coding RNA editing, and CRISPR/Cas9-mediated non-coding RNA knock down are two emerging areas for “Non-coding RNA centered” community.

The journal Non-coding RNA Investigation contains seven categories of manuscripts including Article, Short Communication, Review, Protocol and Database, Opinion and Hypothesis, Research Highlight, and Correspondence. We are particularly welcome the studies about relative unexplored topic such as circular RNA, enhancer RNA, cncRNA, non-coding RNA in extracellular vesicles, non-coding RNA editing, and CRISPR/Cas9-mediated non-coding RNA knock down in physiological and pathological processes.

We target our journal at both young and senior investigators in non-coding RNA field. We aim at providing rapid peer-reviewed and high quality publications with free access. To achieve this, we run one round revision policy and will not delay valid and positively reviewed manuscripts that report important novel findings with keeping asking for adding more experiments to just make them perfect, though reasonable validation would always be necessary. Besides that, we also open a fast track submission for those manuscripts that have previously been reviewed in a well-established journal as long as all review comments have been provided.

In short, we hope Non-coding RNA Investigation would be a favorable choice for both authors and readers in non-coding RNA and other related area. We are sure that this could be definitely achieved with the support from our top class scientists in our Editorial Board. We look forward to receiving your contributions to our journal and make it a great success.

Junjie Xiao

Editor-in-Chief, Non-coding RNA Investigation

Acknowledgments

Funding: None.

Footnote

Provenance and Peer Review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, Non-coding RNA Investigation. This article did not undergo external peer review.

Conflicts of Interest: The author has completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/ncri.2017.02.01). JX serves as Editor-in-Chief of Non-coding RNA Investigation.

Ethical Statement: The author is accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.