Journal
MOLECULAR CELL
Volume 67, Issue 2, Pages 228-+Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2017.05.022
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Funding
- Dean's Fellowship
- National Institutes of Health Postgraduate Training Program [2T32AR00742231]
- James Hudson Brown-Alexander Brown Coxe Fellowship
- Swedish Research Council International Postdoctoral Fellowship [VR-2016-06794]
- Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation [2090-11]
- Rita Allen Foundation Scholar
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- National Institutes of Health [R00-GM104166, R35-GM119735, R41AI120269, P50-HG007735, R01-HG004361]
- Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
- Swedish Research Council [2016-06794] Funding Source: Swedish Research Council
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Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are single-stranded RNAs that are joined head to tail with largely unknown functions. Here we show that transfection of purified in vitro generated circRNA into mammalian cells led to potent induction of innate immunity genes and confers protection against viral infection. The nucleic acid sensor RIG-I is necessary to sense foreign circRNA, and RIG-I and foreign circRNA co-aggregate in cytoplasmic foci. CircRNA activation of innate immunity is independent of a 50 triphosphate, double-stranded RNA structure, or the primary sequence of the foreign circRNA. Instead, self-nonself discrimination depends on the intron that programs the circRNA. Use of a human intron to express a foreign circRNA sequence abrogates immune activation, and mature human circRNA is associated with diverse RNA binding proteins reflecting its endogenous splicing and biogenesis. These results reveal innate immune sensing of circRNA and highlight introns-the predominant output of mammalian transcription-as arbiters of self-nonself identity.
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