1.1 Non-coding RNAs The central dogma of molecular biology states that genetic information is transmitted from DNA to mRNA to proteins, implying that proteins are the main genetic output functional (Crick 1970). Even those few non-protein coding RNAs (ncRNAs) known initially, such as transfer RNA, ribosomal RNA, snoRNAs, and splicosomal RNAs, were eventually required for mRNA processing and translation. The dogma may still be applicable to prokaryotes whose genome consists of ca. 90% protein coding genes. In eukaryotes, however, only about 2% of genes encode proteins (Alexander et al. 2010) and these have been studied extensively. The remaining major fraction of genomic output has long been classified as genetic junk, as most transcripts had little or no protein coding capacity or cis-regulatory functions. Techniques such as high-resolution microarrays and improved sequencing analyzes have revealed that 98% of the human genome consists of non-protein coding sequences, compared to 25% in prokaryotes. Surprisingly, this increased proportion of ncRNAs (and not the number of protein-coding genes) is accompanied by greater developmental complexity. By the time proteins reach their functional limits, other regulatory components such as introns and other sequences coding for ncRNAs have evolved (Mattick 2004). Coinciding with the abundance of ncRNAs, higher species also possess more proteins carrying RNA binding sites (Mattick & Makunin 2006). The demotion of non-coding transcripts as "transcriptional noise" had to be corrected since a significant number of non-coding transcripts showed cell type-specific expression, specific localization in cellular compartments, functional relevance to development and...... half of the article ......and macroautophagy A role of ncRNAs in major autophagy pathways has already been demonstrated for more than ten different miRNAs (Frankel & Lund 2012). Just like miRNAs, lncRNAs possess transcriptional and post-transcriptional modification capabilities and are – also given their high abundance – likely candidates to regulate the different phases of autophagy. Furthermore, combining the fact that both lncRNAs and autophagy have been shown to be up- or down-regulated in some tumors (Levine 2007; Prensner 2011) could indicate a functional interaction of lncRNAs and autophagy. Despite the growing number of publications related to lncRNAs, there are only very few groups addressing the role of lncRNAs in autophagy: i. Zhao et al 2014, Role3 of3 lncRNA3 HULC3 in3 cell proliferation3,3 apoptosis3 and3 tumor3 metastasis3in3 cancer3gastic, Oncol Rep: