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. 2025 Feb 19.
doi: 10.1038/s41587-025-02561-8. Online ahead of print.

Internal cap-initiated translation for efficient protein production from circular mRNA

Kosuke Fukuchi #  1 , Yuko Nakashima #  1 , Naoko Abe #  2 , Seigo Kimura  3 , Fumitaka Hashiya  4 , Yuichi Shichino  5 , Yiwei Liu  1 , Ryoko Ogisu  1 , Satomi Sugiyama  1 , Daisuke Kawaguchi  1 , Masahito Inagaki  1 , Zheyu Meng  1 , Shiryu Kajihara  1 , Mizuki Tada  1 , Satoshi Uchida  6   7 , Ting-Ting Li  1 , Ramkrishna Maity  1 , Tairin Kawasaki  1 , Yasuaki Kimura  1 , Shintaro Iwasaki  5   8 , Hiroshi Abe  9   10
Affiliations

Internal cap-initiated translation for efficient protein production from circular mRNA

Kosuke Fukuchi et al. Nat Biotechnol. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Circular mRNA faces challenges in enhancing its translation potential as an RNA therapeutic. Here we introduce two molecular designs that bolster circular mRNA translation through an internal cap-initiated mechanism. The first consists of a circular mRNA with a covalently attached N7-methylguanosine (m7G) cap through a branching structure (cap-circ mRNA). This modification allows circular mRNA to recruit translation machinery and produce proteins more efficiently than internal ribosome entry site (IRES)-containing circular mRNAs. Combining with an N1-methylpseudouridine (m1Ψ) modification, cap-circ mRNA exhibits a lower acute immunostimulatory effect, maintaining high translation in mice. The second design features the non-covalent attachment of an m7G cap to a circular mRNA through hybridization with an m7G cap-containing oligonucleotide, enhancing translation by more than 50-fold. This setup allows circular mRNAs to synthesize reporter proteins upon hybridizing with capped mRNAs or long non-coding RNAs and to undergo rolling circle-type translation. These advancements broaden the therapeutic applications of circular mRNAs by minimizing their molecular size, elevating translation efficiency and facilitating cell-type-selective translation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: H.A. and S.U. are co-founders of Crafton Biotechnology, a company that focuses on the development of mRNA therapeutics. An international patent application covering part of this work was filed by the Japan Science and Technology Agency and Nagoya University (inventors: H.A., N.A., M.I., Y.N., Y.K. and F.H.; publication number WO/2023/167276). S.I. is a member of the Scientific Reports editorial board. The other authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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