Identification of CircRNA–miRNA–mRNA Regulatory Network in Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor

Abstract

Circular RNA (circRNA) abnormal expression and regulation are involved in the occurrence and development of a variety of tumors. However, the role of circRNAs still remains unknown in gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs). In the present study, the differential circRNA expression profile of GISTs was screened by human circRNAs chip and verified by qRT-PCR. The circRNA-miRNA-mRNA regulatory network was constructed using the cytoHubba plugin based on the Cytoscape software. Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses were performed to explore circRNA functions. Six significantly differential circRNAs were also verified in 20 pairs of GISTs and adjacent tissues by qRT-PCR. The result showed that a total of 543 differentially expressed circRNAs were identified in GISTs, of which 242 were up-regulated and 301 were down-regulated. Additionally, the circRNA-miRNA-mRNA network contained six circRNAs, 30 miRNAs, and 308 mRNAs, and the targeted mRNAs were associated with "regulation of biological process," "intracellular organelle," "protein binding," and enriched in Wnt signaling pathway. Furthermore, qRT-PCR demonstrated that hsa_circRNA_061346, hsa_circRNA_103114, and hsa_circRNA_103870 were significantly up-regulated in GISTs (n = 20), and hsa_ circRNA_405324, hsa_circRNA_406821, and hsa_circRNA_000361 were dramatically down-regulated in GISTs (n = 20). In addition, all of these circRNAs were shown to have high diagnostic values, and most of them were significantly associated with tumor size, mitotic figure, and malignant degrees in GISTs (P < 0.05). Therefore, we concluded that circRNAs were abnormally expressed in GISTs, and the circRNA-miRNA-mRNA regulatory network plays an important role in the occurrence and development of GISTs. Also, the identified six candidate circRNAs might be critical circRNAs and may present as potential diagnostic biomarkers for GISTs.

The Emerging Regulatory Role of Circular RNAs in Periodontal Tissues and Cells

“…The circRNA–miRNA–mRNA regulatory network was reported in diabetic foot ulcers [ 74 ], osteosarcoma [ 75 ], and various cancers [ 76 ], and it has now been described as the most important molecular mechanism of circRNAs in periodontal cells. However, there remains a need to better understand the full range of potential mechanisms that can underlie the activity of circRNAs.…”

Differently Expressed Circular RNAs in Lacrimal Sacs From Patients With Chronic Dacryocystitis

“…CircRNAs have multiple molecular mechanisms, such as nuclear transcriptional regulators of host genes, RNA-binding protein sequestering agents or miRNA sponges ( Li et al, 2018 ). Thus dysregulated circRNAs have been reported to be involved in a lot of disease such as osteoarthritis, cancer and many ocular disorders ( Zhou et al, 2019 ; Cui et al, 2020 ; Zhou et al, 2020 ; Zou et al, 2020 ; Zheng et al, 2021 ). In our study, we performed high-throughput RNA sequencing of the lacrimal sac samples from chronic dacryocystitis patients and control individuals for the first time and constructed circRNA-mRNA and circRNA-miRNA interaction networks trying to throw light on the pathogenesis of chronic dacryocystitis on RNA level.…”

Potential and functional prediction of six circular RNAs as diagnostic markers for colorectal cancer

“…The Agilent Scanner G2505C was used to scan arrays after the slides having been washed. Acquired array images was analyzed by Agilent Feature Extraction software (version 11.0.1.1) ( Zou et al, 2020 ). R software limma package was used for quantile normalization and subsequent data processing.…”