Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are involved in various biological processes and in disease pathogenesis. However, only a small number of functional circRNAs have been identified among hundreds of thousands of circRNA species, partly because most current methods are based on circular junction counts and overlook the fact that circRNA is formed from the host gene by back-splicing (BS). To distinguish between expression originating from BS and that from the host gene, we present DEBKS, a software program to streamline the discovery of differential BS between two rRNA-depleted RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) sample groups. By applying real and simulated data and employing RT-qPCR for validation, we demonstrate that DEBKS is efficient and accurate in detecting circRNAs with differential BS events between paired and unpaired sample groups. DEBKS is available at https://github.com/yangence/DEBKS as open-source software.

中文翻译：

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DEBKS：一种检测差异表达的环状RNA的工具

环状RNA（circRNA）参与各种生物学过程和疾病发病机理。然而，在成千上万的circRNA物种中仅鉴定了少量的功能性circRNA，部分原因是大多数当前方法基于圆形连接计数，而忽略了通过反向剪接（BS）由宿主基因形成circRNA的事实。为了区分源自BS的表达和源自宿主基因的表达，我们介绍了DEBKS，这是一个软件程序，用于简化两个rRNA耗尽的RNA测序（RNA-seq）样品组之间差异BS的发现。通过应用真实的和模拟的数据并采用RT-qPCR进行验证，我们证明DEBKS在检测成对和未成对样品组之间具有差异BS事件的circRNA方面是高效且准确的。