Metatranscriptomes reveal increased diversity of viroid-like circular RNAs

Viroids are short RNA molecules that do not encode their own proteins but exploit their plant host’s transcription machinery for replication. Viroids and viroid-like RNAs typically form a range of secondary structures and are often found as covalently closed circular molecules, making their identification in silico difficult with contemporary pipelines. In Cell, Lee et al. reanalyze 5,131 metatranscriptome datasets collected from diverse ecosystems with a new algorithm to identify 11,378 viroid-like circular RNAs and increase their diversity fivefold.

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