Identification and characterization of circRNAs of viral origin in cancers

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been recently identified to be expressed from the oncogenic human viruses, opening a new opportunity into understanding viral oncogenesis. However, the mechanism of how viral circRNAs contribute to cancers remains elusive. In this study, we employed circRNA detection tool CIRI2 to systematically identified virus expressed circRNAs from RNase R treated RNA-Seq samples from virus infected cell lines and patients with Lymphoma, Lung adenocarcinoma, Cervical carcinoma, Gastric carcinoma and Liver carcinoma. Based on thousands of viral circRNAs we identified, our analysis further systematically unraveled their characteristics and their potential roles in virus biology and cancer. Finally, we developed a database Viral-circRNA (http://www.hywanglab.cn/vcRNAdb/), which allows users to search, browse and download the information of viral circRNAs in cancers, for further exploring their roles in cancers.