A circular RNA derived from the Tulp4 gene regulates axonal arborization and synaptic transmission

SEBASTIÁN GIUSTI; BELÉN PARDI; MARIA GEORGINA DAVIES SALA; NATALIA PINO

Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires

Simposio; Simposio Fronteras en Biociencia 2; 2016

Instituto de Biomedicina de Buenos AIres

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have recently emerged as a large class of animal RNAs with complex tissue- and stage-dependent expression patterns. Most of them are derived from protein-coding genes and can be distinguished from their linear counterparts by their remarkable continuous closed loop structure, formed by a?back-splicing? event wherein a covalent bond is formed between a 5? (splice donor) and a 3? (splice acceptor) splice-sites of a pre-mRNA. Back-splicing leads to the formation of a ?head-to-tail junction? that contains a unique sequence not present in mRNAs. The abundance and evolutionary conservation suggest that circRNAs might have specific roles in cellular physiology. Several possible functions have been proposed for this heterogeneous group of transcripts including miRNA binding, protein binding and regulation of translation. However, to date, only few circRNAs have been functionally characterized.