Here we present processed circRNA data associated with our study characterising embryonic circular RNAs in zebrafish.
Circular RNAs are a puzzling class of RNAs with covalently closed loop structure, lacking 5’ and 3’ ends. Present in all cells, no unifying theme has emerged regarding their function. Here, we use transcriptional data obtained by biotagging in zebrafish to uncover a high-resolution cohort of embryonic circRNAs expressed in nuclear and polysomal subcellular compartments in three developmental cell types. The ample presence of embryonic circRNAs on polysomes contradicts previous reports suggesting predominant nuclear localization. We uncover a novel class of circRNAs, significantly enriched at tandem duplicated genes. Using an NGS-based approach, we simultaneously screen and resolve the full sequence of putative “tandem-circRNAs” and their underlying mRNAs. These form by long-range cis-splicing events often between distant tandem duplicated genes, resulting in chimaeric mRNA transcripts and circRNAs containing their supernumerary excised exons, integrated from multiple tandem loci. Taken together, our results suggest that circularisation events rather than circRNAs themselves are functionally important.
circRNAs, zebrafish, tandem circRNAs
Danio rerio
Embryonic circular RNAs at tandem duplicated genes of zebrafish present new paradigm in gene expression
Vanessa Chong-Morrison1 and Tatjana Sauka-Spengler1,
Corresponding author: Tatjana Sauka-Spengler (tatjana.sauka-spengler@imm.ox.ac.uk)
- University of Oxford,
Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine,
Radcliffe Department of Medicine,
Oxford, OX3 9DS, UK
Vanessa Chong-Morrison and Tatjana Sauka-Spengler: Sauka-Spengler lab based at Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine and at Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford
This work was supported by MRC (G0902418), Lister Institute Research Prize, and an Oxford BHF CRE award (RE/08/004) to T.S.-S. and a Clarendon Fund Fellowship to V.C.-M.