Apoptosis is a mechanism of programmed cell death that is essential for survival, homeostatis and development. Various protein coding genes and non-coding RNAs were reported as apoptosis regulators. However, the potential roles of circular RNA in the regulation of apoptosis are still unknown. In this study, we have performed transcriptomics study to reveal differentially expressed, pathway-drug specific and/or global circRNAs in apoptotic HeLa cells. Cisplatin (CP), doxorubicin (DOX), Fas mAb(FAS) and TNF-alpha (TNF-a) were used to trigger apoptosis in HeLa cells. Apoptosis rates of three replicates of treatment and control cells were measured by flow cytometry and differentially expressed circular RNAs were identified by deep RNA sequencing. Circular RNA candidates were firstly sorted based on their significance according to pad j value, further classified based on fold change, pathway-drug specificity and source genes. Then, circular RNA candidates were analysed bioinformatically to obtain their coding potential, potential miRNA binding sites and involvement in possible apoptotic pathways. Furthermore, divergent primers were designed to validate backsplicing junction sequence of circular RNA candidates. RNAse R treatment was used to eliminate linear transcripts and enrich circular RNAs. The expression of candidate circular RNAs was analysed RNAse R treated samples. Backsplicing junctions of positive circular control circ-HIPK3 was validated by TA cloning and sequencing. Differential expression of positive control (circ-HIPK3), candidate-8 and candidate-6 were validated by quantitative PCR. Key words: apoptosis, circular RNAs, deep sequencing, RNase R, transcriptomics