Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2013, 14, 4298-4316; doi:10.3390/ijms14024298 OPEN ACCESS International Journal of Molecular Sciences ISSN 1422-0067 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijms Review The Increasing Complexity of the Oncofetal H19 Gene Locus: Functional Dissection and Therapeutic Intervention Imad Matouk 1,2,*, Eli Raveh 1, Patricia Ohana 1, Rasha Abu Lail 1, Eitan Gershtain 1, Michal Gilon 1, Nathan De Groot 1, Abraham Czerniak 3 and Abraham Hochberg 1 1 Department of Biological Chemistry, Institute of Life Sciences, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel; E-Mails:
[email protected] (E.R.);
[email protected] (P.O.);
[email protected] (R.A.L.);
[email protected] (E.G.);
[email protected] (M.G.);
[email protected] (A.H.) 2 Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology, Al-Quds University, Jerusalem 51000, Israel 3 Department of HPB Surgery “A”, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Tel Aviv 52621, Israel; E-Mail:
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[email protected]; Tel.: +972-2-658-5456. Fax: +972-2-548-6550. Received: 3 December 2012; in revised form: 29 January 2013 / Accepted: 6 February 2013 / Published: 21 February 2013 Abstract: The field of the long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) is advancing rapidly. Currently, it is one of the most popular fields in the biological and medical sciences. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the majority of the human transcriptome has little or no-protein coding capacity. Historically, H19 was the first imprinted non-coding RNA (ncRNA) transcript identified, and the H19/IGF2 locus has served as a paradigm for the study of genomic imprinting since its discovery.