The roles of circRNAs in human cancer

It has been 40 years since circular RNA (circRNA) was found in RNA viruses [1]. Until now, more than one hundred thousand circRNAs have been discovered in cells [2], most of which have the characteristics of abundance and stability [3]. We divided circRNAs into the following three categories according to the source of the genome and multiple biogenesis patterns: circular intronic RNAs (ciRNA), exonic circRNA (ecircRNAs) and exonic-intron circRNAs (EIciRNA). CircRNAs were previously believed to be erroneous splicing processes that have no function [4].

Source: Cancer Letters - April 3, 2018 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Ruoyu Zhou, Yuwei Wu, Wenxi Wang, Wenjia Su, Yicong Liu, Yumin Wang, Chunmei Fan, Xiaoling Li, Guiyuan Li, Yong Li, Wei Xiong, Zhaoyang Zeng Tags: Mini-review Source Type: research