Ji et al. Cell Rep. 26, 3444–3460 (2019)

Emerging evidence suggests that circular RNAs (circRNAs), a newly discovered class of noncoding RNAs, regulate many biological and pathological processes such as development, atherosclerosis and cancer. Advances in deep sequencing have identified numerous novel circRNAs and spurred interest in these molecules. However most databases are not comprehensive because they were established from only one cell-type, tissue or species, and fail to identify functionally important candidates. A new large-scale study of circRNAs repertoires from multiple tissues from human, macaque and mouse identified thousands of evolutionary conserved circRNAs and systematically elucidated their diversity in various tissues. These datasets, which are available online (http://circatlas.biols.ac.cn/), allowed the investigators to infer circRNA functions on a global scale and to prioritize promising functional candidates.