Fig. 1

Genomic features of C. elegans circRNAs. a Schematic showing a circRNA generated by backsplicing of exons, and the mapping of reads to the back-spliced junction. b Distribution of circRNAs in the C. elegans genome. Data was mapped from 12 total RNA-seq libraries of N2 worms, including L4 larvae (L4), Day 1 (D-1), Day 7 (D-7), and Day 10 (D-10). CDS, protein coding sequence. c Forward and reverse splicing patterns for the haf-4 gene. Linear spliced read count (green) and back-splicing read count (brown) are shown. Numbers correspond to the number of spliced reads detected in the D-10 datasets. Only reads corresponding to the junctions included in circRNAs are shown. The gene haf-4 generates a single circRNA that extends across 8 exons. d afd-1 generates 8 circRNAs. e Bar plot showing the number of expressed circRNAs per gene. f Number of exons contained within exonic circRNAs. g Ranked position of circRNA first exon for circRNAs containing more than 1 exon. h Presence of Reverse Complementary Matches (RCM) in introns flanking circRNA exons is greater than non-circRNA generating exon controls. Number above bars correspond to # of loci. *, P < 0.0001 on Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunn’s post-hoc test for multiple comparisons