Defining an evolutionarily conserved role of GW182 in circular RNA degradation.

By using dsRNA screening, we found that GW182 is critical for the degradation of circRNA in the Drosophila cells. To further confirm our finding genome widely, S2 cells were treated with either β-gal dsRNA (as a control) or GW182 dsRNA for 3 days and total RNA was extracted and sequenced after ribosome depletion. By comparing the expression level of both circRNAs and linear mRNAs between controls and GW182 depleted samples, we confirmed that GW182 depletion led to accumulation circRNAs but not their parental linear mRNAs, indicating that GW182 may play an import role in the degradation of circRNAs. Three biological replicates for both beta-gal dsRNA and GW182 dsRNA treated samples.