Identifying the Transcription, Translation, and Functionality of Circular RNAs Using High-Throughput Sequencing Data

Overview

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been a novel discovery in the past two decades. Formed by a different type of alternative splicing called back-splicing, circRNAs have been found to have functionality in developmental tissues, cancers, mRNA translation regulation, neurodegenerative diseases, and miRNAs sponges. Although circRNAs have been detected using various tools, there has not been a method to holistically analyze circRNAs and their functionalities through detecting the transcription, translation, and miRNA binding sites. This project attempts to develop this method and find evidence for functionalities of specific, novel circRNAs. By using high- throughput RNA-seq and Ribo-seq dataset obtained from the cerebral cortex of mice in wild-type and mettl3 conditions, a thorough analysis was conducted to detect circRNAs. Here, 2081 circRNAs were detected with specific circRNAs having possible functionalities. By aligning Ribo-seq reads to a circRNA index, a multitude of reads that perfectly matched the back-splice junction were found, indicating possible translation of a circRNA involved in the metabolic system and turnover of fatty acids. Furthermore, analyzing the miRNA-binding sites of differentially expressed circRNAs, 170 impacted biological processes were found, with the highest-confidence processes involving functionalities in biological development and regulation. Currently, the entire procedure is being created as a pipeline to be completed in one run. Thus, circRNAs can be detected efficiently with any publicly available dataset in various tissues of different organisms. This research is pioneering the path towards more simplified, effective tools for scientists and researchers to use, revealing circRNAs’ broad application in various molecular and therapeutic targets.

Competition history

• JSHS 2022 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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