Fan and colleagues at the Peking University in Beijing, China developed a single cell poly-A independent RNA sequencing to elucidate the circular RNA transcriptome of mouse preimplantation embryos. The analysis discovered a total of over 2800 novel circular RNA transcripts in the embryos. This discovery apart from adding a significant number of circular RNAs to the compendium, is also the starting point to understanding the role of circRNAs in early embryogenesis and potential implications in development of diseases, including birth defects.
Fan et al
Genome Biol. 2015; 16(1): 148. Published online 2015 Jul 23. doi: 10.1186/s13059-015-0706-1
