Fig. 1: The biogenesis of circRNAs.
From: Emerging functions of circular RNA in the regulation of adipocyte metabolism and obesity
Base pairing between intronic reverse complementary sequences (ICSs) of the flanking introns or the RBPs dimerization prompts the 3′ splice donor site joined with the 5′ splice acceptor site, leading to the backsplicing. This event results in the formation of exon–intron circRNAs (EIcircRNAs) or exonic circRNAs (EcircRNAs). Alternatively, circRNAs can also arise from exon-containing lariats or intronic lariats.
