{"doi":"10.3389/fmolb.2021.795286","title":"Editorial: Structural and Functional Characterization of Circular RNAs","abstract":"Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of covalently closed RNA molecules without any free ends. The existence of circRNAs was first discovered in plant viroids, followed by their discovery in eukaryotic cells by electron microscopy more than 40 years ago However, they were mostly considered non-functional splicing byproducts or intronic lariats. Their identification and functional characterization progressed slowly until the development of highthroughput RNA-sequencing methods and novel computational tools The last few years have seen an exploding number of studies elucidating the molecular mechanisms of biogenesis and function of circRNAs. Recent discoveries established that circRNAs are generated by the backsplicing of pre-mRNA, mediated by RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) and inverted repeat sequences in the flanking introns Interestingly, circRNAs have been identified in all eukaryotic model organisms and are believed to be ubiquitously expressed, and some of the circRNAs are conserved across species Moreover, the altered expression of circRNAs during development and diseases has been reported, and their extraordinary stability and presence in biofluids make them promising biomarkers for disease diagnosis Increasing evidence suggests that circRNAs regulate the activity of microRNAs and RNA-binding proteins, and some are translated into peptides Recent studies have shown that circRNAs play critical roles in various pathophysiological processes Although circRNAs have been established as crucial regulators of gene expression and disease development, many of the molecular details of circRNA biogenesis and function remain to be explored. In addition, only a tiny subset of circRNAs has been functionally characterized among more than a million circRNAs identified thus far Based on the above, this research topic aimed at contributing towards the elucidation of the role of circRNAs in various physiological and pathological conditions.","journal":"Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences","year":2021,"id":221931,"datarank":0.10397207708399181,"base_score":0.6931471805599453,"endowment":0.6931471805599453,"self_citation_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.10397207708399181,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9564,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":488620,"name":"Florian A. Karreth","orcid":"0000-0002-2350-9809","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275714,"name":"Amaresh C. Panda","orcid":"0000-0003-3189-8995","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":276007,"name":"Ioannis Grammatikakis","orcid":"0000-0002-8455-1584","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":12,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:53:59.302331Z","pmid":"34796203","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}