Identification and Characterization of Non-Coding RNAs in Thymoma.

BACKGROUND Thymoma is the most common tumor of the anterior mediastinum, and can be caused by infrequent malignancies arising from the epithelial cells of the thymus. Unfortunately, blood-based diagnostic markers are not currently available. High-throughput sequencing technologies, such as RNA-seq with next-generation sequencing, have facilitated the detection and characterization of both coding and non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), which play significant roles in genomic regulation, transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation, and imprinting and epigenetic modification.