The circular RNA circBIRC6 participates in the molecular circuitry controlling human pluripotency

Chun-Ying Yu, Tung-Cheng Li, Yi-Ying Wu, Chan-Hsien Yeh, Wei Chiang, Ching-Yu Chuang and Hung-Chih Kuo ()
Additional contact information
Chun-Ying Yu: Academia Sinica
Tung-Cheng Li: Academia Sinica
Yi-Ying Wu: Academia Sinica
Chan-Hsien Yeh: Academia Sinica
Wei Chiang: Academia Sinica
Ching-Yu Chuang: Academia Sinica
Hung-Chih Kuo: Academia Sinica

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Abstract Accumulating evidence indicates that circular RNAs (circRNAs) are abundant in the human transcriptome. However, their involvement in biological processes, including pluripotency, remains mostly undescribed. We identified a subset of circRNAs that are enriched in undifferentiated human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and demonstrated that two, circBIRC6 and circCORO1C, are functionally associated with the pluripotent state. Mechanistically, we found that circBIRC6 is enriched in the AGO2 complex and directly interacts with microRNAs, miR-34a, and miR-145, which are known to modulate target genes that maintain pluripotency. Correspondingly, circBIRC6 attenuates the downregulation of these target genes and suppresses hESC differentiation. We further identified hESC-enriched splicing factors (SFs) and demonstrated that circBIRC6 biogenesis in hESCs is promoted by the SF ESRP1, whose expression is controlled by the core pluripotency-associated factors, OCT4 and NANOG. Collectively, our data suggest that circRNA serves as a microRNA “sponge” to regulate the molecular circuitry, which modulates human pluripotency and differentiation.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01216-w Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-017-01216-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01216-w

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().