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April 27, 2026

The history and function of a circular RNA

In 2024, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNAs (miRNAs), acknowledging their important role as post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression. miRNAs are small non-coding RNAs (20–24 nucleotides) that bind 3’-untranslated...

February 11, 2026

Circular RNA circHomer1 mediates hippocampal functions via ribonucleoprotein granule transport and dendritic targeting of synaptic RNAs

Circular RNAs are backspliced, closed-loop RNAs previously believed to be noncoding by-products formed during transcription. Increasing evidence suggests that circular RNAs have crucial functions in the brain, such as regulating neuronal transmission and synaptic plasticity. However, the specific molecular mechanisms by which circular RNAs function remain largely unexplored. Here, we investigated how circHomer1...

February 17, 2023

Prenatal alcohol exposure results in brain region- and sex-specific changes in circHomer1 expression in adult mouse brain

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a novel category of covalently-closed non-coding RNAs mainly derived from the back-splicing of exons or introns of protein-coding genes. In addition to their inherent high overall stability, circRNAs, have been shown to have strong functional effects on gene expression via a multitude of transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms...

August 4, 2022

Knockdown of circHomer1 in the orbitofrontal cortex results in differential encoding of salient stimuli

CircHomer1 is an activity-dependent circular RNA (circRNA) isoform produced from back-splicing of the Homer1 transcript. Homer1 isoforms are well-known regulators of homeostatic synaptic plasticity through post-synaptic density scaffold regulation. Homer1 polymorphisms have been associated with psychiatric diseases including schizophrenia (SCZ) and…

January 18, 2022

A bidirectional competitive interaction between circHomer1 and Homer1b within the orbitofrontal cortex regulates reversal learning

Although circular RNAs (circRNAs) are enriched in the brain, their relevance for brain function and psychiatric disorders is poorly understood. Here, we show that circHomer1 is inversely associated with relative HOMER1B mRNA isoform levels in both the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and stem-cell-derived neuronal cultures of subjects with psychiatric disorders…

November 9, 2020

Prenatal Alcohol Exposure Results in Sex-Specific Alterations in Circular RNA Expression in the Developing Mouse Brain

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) are heterogeneous disorders associated with alcohol exposure to the developing fetus that are characterized by a range of adverse neurodevelopmental deficits. Despite the numerous genomics and genetic studies on FASD models, the comprehensive molecular understanding of the mechanisms that underlie…

January 27, 2020

A psychiatric disease-related circular RNA controls synaptic gene expression and cognition

Although circular RNAs (circRNAs) are enriched in the mammalian brain, very little is known about their potential involvement in brain function and psychiatric disease. Here, we show that circHomer1a, a neuronal-enriched circRNA abundantly expressed in the frontal cortex, derived from Homer protein homolog 1 (HOMER1), is significantly reduced in…

October 7, 2019

An atlas of cortical circular RNA expression in Alzheimer disease brains demonstrates clinical and pathological associations

Parietal cortex RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) data were generated from individuals with and without Alzheimer disease (AD; ncontrol = 13; nAD = 83) from the Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center (Knight ADRC). Using this and an independent (Mount Sinai Brain Bank (MSBB)) AD RNA-seq dataset, cortical circular RNA (circRNA) expression was quantified in the context of AD…

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