线虫环状RNA分析
Analysis of Circular RNA in Caenorhabditis elegans

外显子环状RNA (ecircRNA)是前体信使RNA中外显子经过反向剪接首尾相连而成环的一类特殊的RNA分子。近期多项研究发现，这类环状RNA广泛存在于真核生物细胞中，并具有调控基因表达的重要功能。本文根据线虫不同生长发育阶段的RNA测序数据，共预测出1112个典型的外显子环状RNA。对这些环状RNA进行分析，发现它们具有生长发育阶段特异性，并同线性的mRNA分子不具有直接的相关性。通过分析环状RNA侧翼内含子序列信息，证明在线虫中环状RNA的形成支持内含子配对驱动环化模型。

Abstract: Exonic circular RNA (ecircRNA) is a class of special RNA molecule which is processed from pre- mRNA through back-to-splice. Recently, a lot of researches identified thousands of circular RNA in eukaryotes and found that circRNA could function as gene regulator. In our research, we predicted 1112 canonical circular RNAs in RNase R treated RNA-seq from different development stages of Caenorhabditis elegans. We discovered that these circular RNAs had developmental specificity, and had no obvious correlation with linear RNA. Through analyzing the sequence information of flanking introns, we inferred that circular RNAs in C. elegans were produced by intron- pair-ing-driven circularization model.

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