Abstract
Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are produced from precursor mRNA (pre-mRNA) back-splicing of thousands of genes in eukaryotes. Although circRNAs are generally expressed at low levels, recent findings have shed new light on their cell type-specific and tissue-specific expression and on the regulation of their biogenesis. Furthermore, the data indicate that circRNAs shape gene expression by titrating microRNAs, regulating transcription and interfering with splicing, thus effectively expanding the diversity and complexity of eukaryotic transcriptomes.
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Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Li Yang for discussions. This work was supported by grants 91440202 and 31322018 from the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), and XDA01010206 from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
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Chen, LL. The biogenesis and emerging roles of circular RNAs. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 17, 205–211 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm.2015.32
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm.2015.32
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