circRNAs in neuronal development and function

GIUSTI, SEBASTIÁN A.; MERINO, FLORENCIA L.; NATALIA S. PINO; DAMIAN REFOJO

Quilmes

Congreso; 2da Reunión Argentina sobre Biología de ARNs no codificantes; 2018

Universidad de Quilmes

Circular RNAs (circRNAs)have emerged as a large class of animal RNAs with complex tissue- andstage-dependent expression patterns. Most of them are derived fromprotein-coding genes and can be distinguished from their linear counterparts bytheir remarkable continuous closed loop structure. We have recently revealed, bycomprehensive sequencing and analysis of ribosomal-depleted RNA from 29different types or stages of neural cells and tissues, a high and specificexpression of circRNAs in the brain. In addition, we show that circRNAs areupregulated during neuronal differentiation and that many circRNAs exhibit anindependent dynamic compared to linear transcripts derived from the same gene. Interestingly,our study strongly suggests that circRNAs are not equally distributed in the neuronalcompartments, but are highly enriched in the synapses. The highest expressedcircRNAs, both in the whole brain and in synaptic fractions, are beingcurrently investigated for functional characterization.