Synthesis of immunogenicity-free RNA circles as potent PKR inhibitors

Exon(s) back-splicing-generated circular RNAs as a group can suppress the double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-activated protein kinase R (PKR) in cells. We have sought to synthesize immunogenicity-free, short dsRNA-containing circular RNAs as potent PKR inhibitors. Here, we report that circular RNAs synthesized by permuted td introns from T4 bacteriophage and by Anabeana pre-tRNA group I intron induce an immune response. Mechanistically, autocatalytic splicing introduces extra ~74 nt and ~186 nt fragments (E1+E2+spacer) that form additional stable loop structures that likely provoke innate immune responses in circular RNA products. In contrast, circular RNAs produced by T4 RNA ligase without unwanted fragment exhibit little immunogenicity. Importantly, directly-ligated circular RNAs form short dsRNA-regions exhibit 103~106 fold higher efficiency than the reported chemical compounds C16 and 2-AP in suppressing PKR activation, highlighting the use of circular RNAs as novel inhibitors for PKR over-reaction diseases. circSHAPE-MaP of in vitro circRNA with/without protein.