MALAT1 and asthma: Huang and colleagues asserted in their preclinical study that since MALAT1 and microRNA-216a can together regulate airway smooth muscle cell proliferation in rat models of asthma, it would be worthwhile starting to investigate both MALAT1 and microRNA-216a as potential biomarkers of asthma, and also investigate their relationship in the diagnosis and prognosis of asthma (Huang et al., 2021).