Genome-wide Discovery and Characterization of Circular RNAs and their Functions

For many years, the main idea in molecular biology was that linear RNA molecules were just messengers that carried genetic information. But high-throughput sequencing technologies have revealed a huge, hidden layer of the transcriptome: Circular RNAs (circRNAs). "Back-splicing" is the process by which circRNAs are made. They are a unique type of single-stranded, covalently closed RNA molecule. CircRNAs are very stable, dont break down easily, and often show expression that is...