ArticleCell reports2021
Mammalian circular RNAs result largely from splicing errors.
Article in Cell reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 75 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
75 citing papers in PubMed, 108 citations in OpenAlex.
- Review
- When circular RNAs meet the genome: CiR-loops as chromatin regulators and disease drivers.Nucleic acids research · 2026Review
- Review
- Role of circular RNAs in regulating toxicity induced by cancer therapies.Genes & diseases · 2026Review
- Identification and expression characteristics of porcine embryonic circRNAs during the peri-implantation.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Transcript diversity reflects deleterious RNA processing errors shaped by population size in metazoans.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Different mRNAs encoding identical proteins: how and why?Journal of applied genetics · 2026Article
- Article
- Circ_0008219 regulates proliferation and apoptosis in goat granulosa cells via a feedback loop with the transcription factor YY1.BMC genomics · 2026Article
- Junction-targeting designs limit the application of CRISPR-Cas13d in circular RNA perturbation studies.Nucleic acids research · 2026Article
- Dysfunctional circular RNA network in major depressive disorder: dissecting the cell identity and potential clinical applications.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- The "cutting edge" of non-canonical RNA splicing.Frontiers in molecular biosciences · 2026Review
- Review
- Circular RNA circEVI5 functions as a miR-433 sponge to promote renal cell carcinoma progression via GBP2-mediated oncogenic signaling.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
- Dual roles of DEAD-box RNA helicase Brr2 in genome stability regulation.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Angel wing: a class of alternative splicing regulators in animals.Nucleic acids research · 2025Article
- ELAV mediates circular RNA biogenesis in neurons.Genes & development · 2025Article
- Decoupling transcriptome layers: the distinct and variable nature of circular RNAs.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Expanded insights into the mechanisms of RNA-binding protein regulation of circRNA generation and function in cancer biology and therapy.Genes & diseases · 2025Review
- ciRS-7 expression is epigenetically regulated in cancer cells across human adenocarcinomas.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Ubiquitous in eukaryotes, circular RNAs (circRNAs) comprise a large class of mostly non-coding RNAs produced by back-splicing. Although some circRNAs have demonstrated biochemical activities, whether most circRNAs are functional is unknown. Here, we test the hypothesis that circRNA production primarily results from splicing error and so is deleterious instead of beneficial. In support of the error hypothesis, our analysis of RNA sequencing data from 11 shared tissues of humans, macaques, and mice finds that (1) back-splicing is much rarer than linear-splicing, (2) the rate of back-splicing diminishes with the splicing amount, (3) the overall prevalence of back-splicing in a species declines with its effective population size, and (4) circRNAs are overall evolutionarily unconserved. We estimate that more than 97% of the observed circRNA production is deleterious. We identify a small number of functional circRNA candidates, and the genome-wide trend strongly suggests that circRNAs are largely non-functional products of splicing errors.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.