Circular RNAs and Their Role in Exosomes

Zeping Han; Huafang Chen; Zhonghui Guo; Jian Shen; Wenfeng Luo; Fangmei Xie; Yu Wan; Shengbo Wang; Jianhao Li; Jinhua He

doi:10.3389/fonc.2022.848341

Circular RNAs and Their Role in Exosomes

Front Oncol. 2022 Apr 28:12:848341. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.848341. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Zeping Han^{1

2}, Huafang Chen³, Zhonghui Guo^{1

2}, Jian Shen¹, Wenfeng Luo¹, Fangmei Xie¹, Yu Wan⁴, Shengbo Wang⁴, Jianhao Li⁵, Jinhua He^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Central Laboratory, Guangzhou Panyu Central Hospital, Guangzhou, China.
² Department of Laboratory Medicine, Guangzhou Panyu Central Hospital, Guangzhou, China.
³ Department of Laboratory Medicine, Leizhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Leizhou, China.
⁴ Department of Gastroenterology, Guangzhou Panyu Central Hospital, Guangzhou, China.
⁵ Department of Cardiology, Central Hospital of Panyu District, Guangzhou, China.

Abstract

As a novel class of endogenous non-coding RNAs discovered in recent years, circular RNAs (circRNAs) are highly conserved and stable covalently closed ring structures with no 5'-end cap or 3'-end poly(A) tail. CircRNAs are formed by reverse splicing, mainly by means of a noose structure or intron complementary pairing. Exosomes are tiny discoid vesicles with a diameter of 40-100 nm that are secreted by cells under physiological and pathological conditions. Exosomes play an important role in cell-cell communication by carrying DNA, microRNAs, mRNAs, proteins and circRNAs. In this review, we summarize the biological functions of circRNAs and exosomes, and further reveal the potential roles of exosomal circRNAs in different diseases, providing a scientific basis for the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of a wide variety of diseases.

Keywords: circRNA; disease; exosomal circRNAs; exosome; non-coding RNA (ncRNA).

Publication types

Review