Differential Expression Of Circular RNA And Prediction Of CircRNA Targets In Patients With Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

Objective: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma(NPC)is the most common malignant tumor of the head and neck,with concealed early onset,diverse clinical manifestations,high degree of malignancy and easy to metastasize.At present,it is believed that the disease is related to genetic factors,EBV infection and environmental factors,but the specific molecular mechanism and regulatory mechanism are still not clear.We used high-throughput gene chip and bioinformatics to compare the expression level of circ RNA in primary NPC and chronic nasopharyngitis(CNP),to study the relationship between the expression level of circ RNAs and the occurrence and development of nasopharyngeal carcinoma,and to predict the potential target genes of differentially expressed circ RNAs,including mi RNA and m RNA,to construct their gene regulatory network.Method: 42 biopsy specimens were collected from Zhongshan Hospital affiliated to Xiamen University,including 21 cases of primary NPC and 21 cases of CNP.Total RNA was extracted and purified from 6 samples from each of the two groups,and the expression level of circ RNAs in NPC and CNP was detected by high-throughput gene chip technology.DE circ RNAs was screened by folding change(FC)ratio(FC ≥ 1.5,P ≤ 0.05).Four DE circ RNAs were randomly selected to verify the accuracy of gene chip detection results in 21 pairs of nasopharyngeal tissues by q RT-PCR.Through the Overlap analysis method,the mi RNAs,that DE circ RNAs may play was predicted and identified from two databases of Target Scan and mi Randa,and the corresponding mi RNAs was found through the three databases of mi Randa,mi RDB and Target Scan.The regulatory network diagram of DE circ RNA-mi RNA-m RNA was constructed by Cytoscape software.Result: 31 DE circ RNAs(FC ≥ 1.5,P ≤ 0.05)were screened from NPC and CNP,including 18 up-regulated circ RNAs and 13 down-regulated circ RNAs.The randomly selected DE circ RNAs was verified by q RT-PCR experiment: the expression trend of hsa＿Circ RNA＿104204,hsa＿Circ RNA＿101252,hsa＿Circ RNA＿100160 and hsa＿Circ RNA＿001430 was consistent with that of chip detection.23 DE circ RNAs and their corresponding target genes were identified by Overlap analysis,including 37 mi RNAs and 50 m RNAs.The regulatory network map of differentially expressed circ RNA-mi RNA-m RNA and 14 circ RNA-mi RNA-m RNA molecular regulatory elements in NPC were constructed by Cytoscape software.Conclusion: 1.Compared with chronic nasopharyngitis,the presence of DE circ RNAs,in nasopharyngeal carcinoma indicates that DE circ RNAs may be related to the occurrence and development of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.2.The prediction of circ RNA target genes and the construction of regulatory network are helpful to further understand the molecular mechanism and regulatory mechanism of NPC.