GreenCircRNA: a database for plant circRNAs that act as miRNA decoys

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are endogenous non-coding RNAs that form a covalently closed continuous loop, are widely distributed and play important roles in a series of developmental processes. In plants, an increasing number of studies have found that circRNAs can regulate plant metabolism and are involved in plant responses to biotic or abiotic stress. Acting as miRNA decoys is a critical way for circRNAs to perform their functions. Therefore, we developed GreenCircRNA-a database for plant circRNAs acting as miRNA decoys that is dedicated to providing a plant-based platform for detailed exploration of plant circRNAs and their potential decoy functions. This database includes over 210 000 circRNAs from 69 species of plants; the main data sources of circRNAs in this database are NCBI, EMBL-EBI and Phytozome. To investigate the function of circRNAs as competitive endogenous RNAs, the possibility of circRNAs from 38 plants to act as miRNA decoys was predicted. Moreover, we provide basic information for the circRNAs in the database, including their locations, host genes and relative expression levels, as well as full-length sequences, host gene GO (Gene Ontology) numbers and circRNA visualization. GreenCircRNA is the first database for the prediction of circRNAs that act as miRNA decoys and contains the largest number of plant species.