Children's Hospital and Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Key Laboratory of Neonatal Diseases, Ministry of Health, Shanghai, China.
Front Immunol. 2018 Dec 18;9:2977. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2018.02977. eCollection 2018.
Circular ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules (circRNAs) are covalently closed loop RNA molecules with no 5' end caps or 3' poly (A) tails, which are generated by back-splicing. Originally, circRNAs were considered to be byproducts of aberrant splicing. However, in recent years, development of high-throughput sequencing has led to gradual recognition of functional circRNAs, and increasing numbers of studies have elucidated their roles in cancer, neurologic diseases, and cardiovascular disorders. Nevertheless, studies of the functions of circRNAs in the immune system are relatively scarce. In this review, we detail relevant research on the biogenesis and classification of circRNAs, describe their functional mechanisms and approaches to their investigation, and summarize recent studies of circRNA function in the immune system.
环形 RNA（circRNA）分子是共价闭合环 RNA 分子，没有 5'端帽或 3' 多聚（A）尾，通过反向剪接产生。最初，circRNA 被认为是异常剪接的副产物。然而，近年来，高通量测序的发展逐渐使人们认识到功能性 circRNA 的存在，越来越多的研究阐明了它们在癌症、神经疾病和心血管疾病中的作用。然而，关于 circRNA 在免疫系统中的功能的研究相对较少。在这篇综述中，我们详细介绍了 circRNA 的生物发生和分类的相关研究，描述了它们的功能机制和研究方法，并总结了最近关于 circRNA 在免疫系统中的功能的研究。
