Following the initial discovery of the heat shock RNA omega (hsrω) gene of 
Drosophila melanogaster to be non-coding (nc) and also inducible by cell stress, 
other stress-inducible long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA) have been described in 
diverse organisms. In view of the rapid sequence divergence of lncRNAs, present 
knowledge of stress trasncriptome is limited and fragmented. Several known 
stress-related lncRNAs, associated with specific nuclear speckled domains or 
nucleolus, provide structural base for sequestering diverse 
RNA-processing/regulatory proteins. Others have roles in transcriptional or 
translational inhibition during stress or in signaling pathways; functions of 
several other lncRNAs are not yet known. Most stress-related lncRNAs act 
primarily by modulating activity of the proteins to which they bind or by 
sequestering specific sets of proteins away from the active pool. A common 
emerging theme is that a given lncRNA targets one or more protein/s with key 
role/s in the cascade of events triggered by the stress and therefore has a 
widespread integrative effect. Since proteins associate with RNA through short 
sequence motifs, the overall base sequence of functionally similar ncRNAs is 
often not conserved except for specific motifs. The rapid evolvability of ncRNA 
sequences provides elegant modules for adaptability to changing environment as 
binding of one or the other protein to ncRNA can alter its structure and 
functions in distinct ways. Thus the stress-related lncRNAs act as hubs in the 
cellular networks to coordinate activities of the members within and between 
different networks to maintain cellular homeostasis for survival or to trigger 
cell death.