ACTA VETERINARIA ET ZOOTECHNICA SINICA ›› 2016, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (11): 2151-2158.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2016.11.001

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The Research Advance of Circular RNA

ZHANG Jin-wei, LONG Ke-ren, WANG Xun, LI Ming-zhou, MA Ji-deng*   

  1. (Institute of Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Animal Science and Technology, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China)
  • Received:2016-03-30 Online:2016-11-23 Published:2016-11-23

Abstract:

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of endogenous noncoding RNA, unlike linear RNAs, which form a covalently closed continuous loop by back-splicing. circRNA has no the 5′ end cap and 3′ end poly (A) tail structure, and exist steadily in many eukaryotic cells. Due to the limitation of traditional biological methods for circRNA detection in both species and abundance, circRNA is traditionally considered as the products of abnormal RNA splicing. With the development of bioinformatics and the innovation of high-throughput sequencing technology, the thousands of endogenous circRNA in mammalian cells were discovered, some of which are highly expressed in a tissue- and development stage-specific manner and display conservation across species, suggesting their potential regulating function on the gene expression. In combination with the characteristics, formation mechanism and biological function of circRNA, we summarize the research advance of circRNA in recent years, aiming to provide fundamental information for studying eukaryotic gene expression regulation and disease detection, and prospect circRNAs′ research in animal molecular breeding.

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