Background Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are widely used in cell therapies; however, replicative senescence during in vitro expansion limits their potency and consistency. Partial reprogramming has em...

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Published online: 09 November 2026; doi:10.1038/s41594-026-01913-5A large-scale screen of RNA-binding proteins uncovered factors that can control the production, stability and translation of circular RNAs (circRNAs), revealing both unexplored strategies to improve circRNA-based therapeutics and a conserved regulator, RBM15, that governs the endogenous formation of circRNAs.

Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Published online: 09 November 2026; doi:10.1038/s41594-026-01913-5A large-scale screen of RNA-binding proteins uncovered factors that can control the production, stability and translation of circular RNAs (circRNAs), revealing both unexplored strategies to improve circRNA-based therapeutics and a conserved regulator, RBM15, that governs the endogenous formation of circRNAs.

Circular Genomics and PharmatrophiX have partnered to enhance neurodegenerative drug development using circRNA biomarkers, starting with Alzheimer’s disease.

PTGCDA: a PU-learning-driven Transformer and GraphSAGE framework for circRNA-disease association prediction - WANGSicong1113/PTGCDA

Here, we identified a novel circRNA termed circSMAD4 that was generated by alternative splicing from exon 2 to exon 10 and back to the beginning of exon 2 of SMAD4 pre-mRNA, constituting a 1435-nucleotide circular RNA.

a, Predicted RNA secondary structures of circXPO1(2,3,4) generated by RNAfold, showing stem-loops flanking the BSJ site (black line). Sequences 50 nt upstream and downstream of BSJ are highlighted in yellow. b, Workflow for identifying RBPs associated with circXPO1(2,3,4). circRNA sequence and RBP binding data were obtained from CIRCpedia, ATtRACT and POSTAR3. Sixteen RBPs from ENCODE eCLIP-seq were selected; cross BSJ reads were mapped to a 100 nt region centered on the BSJ. c, RBPs mapped to the circXPO1(2,3,4) BSJ region (left) and linear XPO1 exon 2 and 4 (right), based on eCLIP-seq data from HepG2 and K562 cell lines, showing less RBP binding on circRNA than linear RNA. d, Schematic of the circFISH probe design for distinguishing circXPO1(2,3,4) from linear XPO1. Gold550-labeled probes target exons 2–4 (shared); Red650-labeled probes hybridize to linear-specific exons. e, Representative images of circXPO1(2,3,4) in HeLa cells. Transcription site (yellow arrow) and circRNA specific focus (white arrow). Nuclear boundary (blue dashed); cellular boundary (white dashed). Magenta, exons 2–4 (Gold550); green, linear specific exons (Red650). f, Statistics of Gold550-only puncta per cell from circFISH shown in e. Data are mean ± s.e.m.; n = 41 cells. g, Comparison of circXPO1(2,3,4) signal numbers between circFISH and abcFISH. abcFISH...

pycircdb: integrated circRNA database annotation for computational workflows - BarryDigby/pycircdb

Researchers at Pusan National University have introduced circMAC, an AI tool designed to discover microRNA binding sites on circular RNAs, enhancing gene regulation studies.

Cell Death Discovery - The sperm survival switch: circRNA-mediated regulatory loops control apoptotic signalling in human spermatozoa