Circular RNAs in Cardiovascular Disease: An Overview

Figure 2

A model of the generation of circular Mbl (circMbl) and MBL: CircMbl is derived from the mbl locus and has conserved binding sites for the MBL protein in the flanking intronic sequences, so it can bind MBL protein. Besides, BML levels can strongly affect the splicing process when mbl pre-mRNA produces mbl mRNA and circMbl. When the level of MBL is high, mbl pre-mRNA produces less mbl mRNA and more circMbl. Less mbl mRNA generates less MBL and more circMbl binds to more MBL, so that MBL level decreases. (+) represents promotion while (−) represents inhibition in this figure, and vice versa.