Extensive and heterogeneous viral circular RNA production during Zika virus infection

Zika virus infection of neural stem cells produces 113 putative viral circular RNAs at 72 hours post infection, distributed across the viral genome.

• Why it matters: Viral circular RNAs are established for DNA viruses, but their presence in RNA viruses is unclear, leaving a gap in how RNA virus biology may generate regulatory RNA forms.
• What they did: The study used a custom computational pipeline for viral back-splice junction detection, then experimentally validated eight candidates with rolling-circle reverse transcription and Nanopore sequencing.
• The result: The results provide the first evidence of vcircRNA production in an orthoflavivirus, implying circular RNA biogenesis may be a previously underappreciated aspect of RNA virus infection.

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