HOTAIR lifts noncoding RNAs to new levels.

It is not clear to what extent noncoding RNAs regulate the homeobox ( HOX ) genes that encode key regulators of development in the embryo. In this issue, Rinn et al. (2007) characterize noncoding RNAs that regulate HOX genes and discover one, HOTAIR, that unexpectedly regulates a HOX gene cluster on a different chromosome than the HOX cluster that encodes it.