Expression profiles of circRNAs and the potential diagnostic value of serum circMARK3 in human acute Stanford type A aortic dissection

PLoS One. 2019 Jun 28;14(6):e0219013. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0219013. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

CircRNAs are involved in a variety of human diseases, however, the expression profiles and the potential diagnostic value of circRNAs in human acute Stanford type A aortic dissection (AAAD) remains largely unknown. In this study, high-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) was used to investigate the differentially expressed circRNAs, microRNAs (miRs) and mRNAs in human AAAD tissues (n = 10) compared with normal aortic tissues (n = 10). The results of RNA-Seq revealed that 506 circRNAs were significantly dysregulated (P<0.05, false discovery rate, FDR<0.05, fold change>2). The subsequent weighted gene correlation network analysis and the following co-expression network analysis revealed that tyrosine-protein kinase Fgr might play important roles in the occurrence and development of AAAD. According to the circRNA-miRNA-mRNA network, we found that the upstream regulatory molecule of Fgr is circMARK3. Finally, a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the diagnostic value of the serum circMARK3 as biomarkers for AAAD (cutoff value = 1.497, area under the curve = 0.9344, P < 0.0001, sensitivity = 90.0%, specificity = 86.7%). These results provided a preliminary landscape of circRNAs expression profiles and indicated that circMARK3 was a potential biomarker for AAAD diagnosis.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Aortic Dissection / blood
  • Aortic Dissection / diagnosis*
  • Biomarkers / blood
  • Female
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • RNA, Circular / blood*
  • RNA, Circular / genetics
  • Sequence Analysis, RNA

Substances

  • Biomarkers
  • RNA, Circular

Grants and funding

Bing Gong received the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No.0214-14380316), and Dongjin Wang received the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 81670437). Bing Gong and Dongjin Wang participated in its design and coordination and helped to draft the manuscript.