Redefining the ncRNA landscape: circular RNAs & micropeptides

Venue: Edificio Povo 2, via Sommarive nr. 9, Povo (Tn) - Room B102
 At 2:00 p.m.

• Christoph Dieterich​ -  Klaus Tschira Institute for Integrative Computational Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine III, University Hospital Heidelberg

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a poorly characterized class of molecules that have been identified decades ago. Emerging high-throughput sequencing methods as well as first reports on confirmed functions have sparked new interest in this RNA species. However, the computational detection and quantification tools are still limited. I will present our recent work

on software solutions for this purpose and present to you some exciting insights from studying ESC, heart and brain RNA-seq data.

In parallel, previous beliefs of the lncRNA world were shaken by by the discovery of functional micropeptides inside apparently non-coding transcripts. 

I will present some unpublished work of us on a software suite that leverages phylogenetic signal and ribosome profiling data to identify specific candidates for experimental validation.