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Discovery and validation of hsa_circ_0001953 as a potential biomarker for proliferative diabetic retinopathy in human blood
Author(s) -
Wu Zheming,
Liu Bing,
Ma Yan,
Chen Haisong,
Wu Jing,
Wang Jiawei
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
acta ophthalmologica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.534
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1755-3768
pISSN - 1755-375X
DOI - 10.1111/aos.14585
Subject(s) - diabetic retinopathy , receiver operating characteristic , biomarker , real time polymerase chain reaction , diabetes mellitus , transcriptome , area under curve , medicine , area under the curve , microrna , false discovery rate , pathogenesis , bioinformatics , oncology , computational biology , gene , biology , gene expression , genetics , endocrinology , pharmacokinetics
Purpose This study aimed to determine whether circular RNAs (circRNAs) in whole blood could be served as novel non‐invasive biomarkers for proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). Methods This retrospective cross‐sectional study comprised 34 healthy participants, 34 PDR patients and 34 non‐proliferative DR (NPDR) patients. High‐throughput whole transcriptome sequencing was performed to explore the expression profile of circRNAs in the whole blood, and the candidate circRNAs were validated by quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction (qRT‐PCR). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis evaluated the ability of these candidate circRNAs in discriminating PDR patients from NPDR patients and healthy subjects. Finally, the networks of circRNA‐miRNA‐mRNA based on the candidate circRNAs were constructed. Results Using sequencing and qRT‐PCR, hsa_circ_0001953 was found to be elevated in PDR patients in contrast with the other two groups. Statistical analysis showed that the expression levels of hsa_circ_0001953 in PDR patients were positively related to the duration of diabetes and HbAc1. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis revealed that hsa_circ_0001953 was associated with a high diagnostic accuracy in discriminating PDR patients from NPDR patients and healthy controls, resulting in an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.87 and 0.92, respectively. The circRNA‐miRNA‐target gene networks for hsa_circ_0001953 showed that hsa_circ_0001953 could interact with dozens of miRNAs and some targeted mRNAs have been potentially involved in the pathogenesis of diabetes. Conclusion The present findings indicate that hsa_circ_0001953 in the whole blood may serve as a novel diagnostic biomarker and potential therapeutic target for PDR.