The translational roles of circular RNAs in cancers and their underlying molecular mechanisms.

Authors

Xinxin Wu, Xiaohan Ye, Huiling Chen, Tao Li, Jiaxin Ge, Jie Guo

Published in

Medical oncology (Northwood, London, England). Volume 43. Issue 8. Jun 27, 2026. Epub Jun 27, 2026.

Abstract

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of endogenous RNAs characterized by a covalently closed circular structure. They can be divided into nuclear-encoded circRNAs (nuc-circRNAs) and mitochondria-encoded circular RNAs (mecciRNAs). For the nuc-circRNAs, there are exonic circular RNA (EcircRNA), circular intronic RNA (CiRNA), and exon-intron circular RNA (EIciRNA). Due to lacking the 3' and 5' ends, circRNAs were long considered non-coding RNAs. However, recent studies have revealed that many circRNAs were translated to proteins or peptides through internal ribosomal entry site (IRES), N⁶-methyladenosine (m⁶A) elements, A-to-I RNA editing, exon junction complex (EJC)-mediated initiation, ribosome shunting, and repeat-associated non-AUG (RAN) translation. The proteins and peptides encoded by circRNAs play significant biological roles including competitively binding with the interaction proteins or signal molecules of their homologous proteins, directly interacting with their homologous proteins, and regulating signal transduction pathways. In this review, we introduced the translational mechanisms of circRNAs and summarized the associated pathways of proteins encoded by circRNAs in human common cancers, such as glioblastoma, colorectal cancer, triple negative breast cancer, gastric cancer, hepatocellular cancer, bladder cancer, etc.

PMID:
42363998
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 27 Jun 2026.

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