Circular RNA: Key Players in RNA World?

Dear Colleagues,

Advances in RNA‐seq technologies, together with specific development bioinformatics tools and databases, have contributed to an explosion in circular RNA (circRNA) research. Although circRNAs were considered as a large class of non-coding RNA for a long time, they are now also emerging as coding RNAs. CircRNAs were identified in eukaryotes and archaea. They are formed by non-canonical splicing between a splice donor site and an upstream splice acceptor site, which leads to their circularization through what is termed a back-spliced junction (BSJ). Even though they were discovered more than 25 years ago, they were long considered to be splicing artifacts. However, they were finally rediscovered serendipitously through next-generation sequencing projects that aimed to study the mechanisms of exon scrambling that occur in cancers.  Bioinformatics contributed a lot to identifying them by searching RNA-seq datasets for the identification of BSJ evidence. They now represent an increasing field of research, mainly due to their multiple functions and their close association with the development of diseases. Indeed, these circRNAs have a tremendous potential of diverse cellular processes that remain to be discovered.

This Special Issue intends to bring together specialists of this field to cover different aspects of circRNA identification and the molecular deciphering of their functions. We welcome both original papers and up-to-date reviews that cover the following topics:

• Coding and non-coding circRNAs as key players in human, animal, plant, archae;
• Biochemical and bioinformatics tools and methods for circRNA analysis;
• CircRNA functions and their molecular characterization;
• Potential of circRNAs as biomarkers;
• CircRNAs in cancer and other human diseases.

Dr. Christine Gaspin
Dr. Éric Lacazette
Guest Editors

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• circRNA
• regulatory RNA
• bioinformatics