Experimental Strategies for Studying the Function of Plant CircRNAs

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) represent a novel group of noncoding RNA whose functions are little known in plants. Genetic manipulation is necessary for studying the biological function of specific circRNA. Here, we describe strategies to study the function of plant circRNAs including artificial microRNA-mediated circRNA knockdown, gain-of-function study, full-length circRNA identification, and circRNA-protein interaction. These methods can be applied to functional characterization of circRNAs in plants and would be promising to facilitate the research on plant circRNAs.