• CircPac: A web-based analysis toolset for exploring circular RNA data
  • Sadra Salehi-Mazandarani,1 Amir Hossein Foroutan,2 Maryam Lotfi-Shahreza,3 Parvaneh Nikpour,4,*
    1. Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
    2. Department of Computer Engineering, Shahreza Campus, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
    3. Department of Computer Engineering, Shahreza Campus, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran
    4. Department of Genetics and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran


  • Introduction: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a type of RNAs that play crucial roles in various biological processes. Their outstanding properties such as tissue-specific expression and high resistance to exonuclease degradation make them attractive for research. However, a comprehensive analysis tool for analyzing circRNA data is still required.
  • Methods: In this study, we present CircPac, a newly developed web-based toolset that searches databases like circBase, circBank, and circRNADisease and organizes data to provide and visualize circRNAs information. Our toolset was created using the Python programming language and its libraries, such as pandas, seaborn, and the Django framework.
  • Results: CircPac enables users to unify the circRNA IDs and subsequently perform various bioinformatic analyses. These analyses include retrieving basic circRNA information, identifying target miRNAs, and analyzing circRNA expression changes in various diseases. Additionally, this toolset generates ready-to-publish figures of circRNA-miRNA interactions and circRNAs expression changes in diseases.
  • Conclusion: CircPac is freely accessible (at https://www.circpac.ir) and offers a user-friendly platform for biologists to efficiently conduct and visualize circRNA data analyses in an appropriate format.
  • Keywords: RNA, Circular; MicroRNAs; Computational Biology; Web-based analysis; Data Visualization