{
  "id": 14284522,
  "title": "Chimeric archaeal BHB-human pre-tRNA scaffold HARBOR system enables versatile production of functional circular RNA modalities",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/13/chimeric-archaeal-bhb-human-pre-trna-scaffold-harbor-system-enables",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-10-13T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "bioRxiv",
    "slug": "biorxiv",
    "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.12.758436v1?rss=1"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Circular RNA (circRNA) molecules showcase enhanced stability and reduced immunogenicity compared to their linear counterparts, making them promising candidates for biomedical and biotechnological applications. Researchers have developed the HARBOR (Human-Archaeal RNA Backbone for Overexpression of Circular RNA) system, an innovative engineered platform that integrates a human precursor transfer RNA (pre-tRNA) scaffold with an archaeal Bulge-Helix-Bulge (BHB) motif. This system leverages the existing tRNA splicing machinery within cells to create chimeric pre-tRNA intermediates, which, after processing, yield a wide range of circRNAs, from hundreds of nucleotides to 8 knt long, in both cell cultures and living organisms.\n\nA key advantage of the HARBOR system is its ability to produce large-sized circRNAs with efficiency up to 80 times greater than the intronic complementary sequence-mediated back-splicing (3D5) system. Additionally, it facilitates protein expression from translatable circRNAs at a rate nearly 20 times higher than the Tornado system. These remarkable characteristics make the HARBOR platform suitable for a wide array of applications, such as generating therapeutic aptamers to target neuroinflammation and pathological TDP-43 condensation, as well as creating protein-coding circRNAs encoding adenine base editors for genome editing and MYOD1 for transforming fibroblasts into myocytes. In summary, the HARBOR system offers a versatile, scalable, and user-friendly approach to harnessing the potential of circRNAs for various engineering and biomedical purposes.",
  "summary": "Circular RNAs (circRNAs) exhibit superior intrinsic stability and lower immunogenicity compared with linear RNAs, rendering them promising modalities for biomedical and biotechnological applications. Here, we establish the HARBOR (Human-Archaeal RNA Backbone for Overexpression of circular RNA) system, an engineered endogenous circRNA expression platform integrating a human precursor transfer RNA…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}