CIRCULAR RNAS IN PLANTS – THE NEW LEVEL OF POSTTRANSCRIPTIONAL REGULATION (MINIREVIEW)

Lately, functional genomics (which studies the regulation in expression of genes fundamental for economically valuable traits) has been actively developed in plant breeding research. In recent years, it has been shown that various RNAs, including miRNAs, play an important role in genes regulation by activating or inhibiting the expression of plant growth and development genes, as well as environmental response genes. Then, quite recently, it was shown that a new class of RNA molecules - circular RNAs, which are formed from mRNA as a result of back-splicing, have regulatory functions interacting with miRNA, as well as with mRNA, affecting positively or negatively the expression level of growth genes, development genes and abiotic-and-biotic stress response genes. This mini-review includes an analysis of recent data about the role of circular RNA in plants.