The circular transcriptome of human glial cells is an area of neuroscience that has not been thoroughly elucidated. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have the potential to facilitate the understanding of vast, complex and unknown mechanisms derived from the human transcriptome, including elements of the human brain that are not known and the evolution of the human brain, the complexities of which are not well understood. Moreover, the glial cells have been determined to contribute to human brain evolution. This study presents the first comprehensive analysis of the human brain glia circRNA transcriptome, that is, astrocytes, microglia and oligodendrocytes.

After stringent criteria applied to the detection of circRNAs, it was found that the circular transcriptomes of these glia are unique from one another, and hence might be indicative of distinct roles for circRNA within the brain. This study found 265, 239 and 442 circRNAs comprising the unique circular transcriptome of astrocytes, microglia and oligodendrocytes, respectively. The most abundant circRNAs in these glial cell types are expressed by parent genes co-expressing linear RNAs in low abundance, suggesting spliceosome activity favorable to the back-splicing mechanism instead of canonical splicing activity.

人类神经胶质细胞的环状转录组是一个尚未完全阐明的神经科学领域。环状 RNA (circRNAs) 有可能促进对源自人类转录组的庞大、复杂和未知机制的理解，包括人类大脑中未知的元素和人类大脑的进化，其复杂性不太好明白了。此外，胶质细胞已被确定有助于人类大脑的进化。这项研究首次对人脑胶质细胞 circRNA 转录组进行了全面分析，即星形胶质细胞、小胶质细胞和少突胶质细胞。

在将严格的标准应用于检测 circRNA 后，发现这些神经胶质的环状转录组彼此独特，因此可能表明 circRNA 在大脑中的不同作用。该研究发现了 265、239 和 442 个 circRNA，分别构成了星形胶质细胞、小胶质细胞和少突胶质细胞的独特环状转录组。这些神经胶质细胞类型中最丰富的 circRNA 由亲本基因共表达低丰度线性 RNA 表达，表明剪接体活性有利于反向剪接机制而不是规范剪接活性。