Peripheral blood CircRNA expression profile analysis in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

Objective To screen the peripheral blood circRNA differently expressed in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and to explore the pathogenetic role of peripheral blood cicRNA in RA by analyzing the data with bioinformatics. Methods The study was performed in 3 RA cases and 3 healthy controls, using circRNA microarrays to screen the circRNA in peripheral blood of patients with RA. The data were normalized and analyzed by R soft package, screening by fold change and P value and searching the differently expressed circRNAs between the two samples by t test. Bioinformatics was performed to analyze the differently expressed circRNAs. Results The results from circRNA microarrays revealed that 36 circRNAs were significantly al-tered in RA patients (P<0.05) compared with the control group. Among them, 22 were significantly up-regulated, and the other 14 were down-regulated. The GO analysis of the genes involved in the circRNA showed that these genes participated in the progress of biological regulation, cell differentiation, and metabolism. We predicted the target miRNA of all the differently expressed circRNAs, among the results there was a miRNA (hsa-miR-125a-3p) targeted by a circRNA(hsa_circ_0005397) experimentally confirmed by other studies. The relationships among circRNA-miRNA-Gene were predicted by Cytoscape software. Conclusion There are many differently expressed circRNAs in peripheral blood of patients with RA, and the circRNAs maybe involved in the regulatory mechanisms of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Key words: Arthritis, rheumatoid; Target gene; Bioinformatics; CircRNA