CircPac: A web-based analysis toolset for exploring circular RNA data

Abstract

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. Here, 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. 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. CircPac is freely accessible (at https://www.circpac.ir ) and offers a user friendly platform for biologists to efficiently conduct and vi-sualize circRNA data analyses in an appropriate format. (c) 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)