Comprehensive analysis of circRNA expression pattern and circRNA-miRNA-mRNA network in oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Abstract Objective CircRNAs are critical gene modulators in tumor initiation and progression. However, the expression pattern and molecular pathogenesis of circRNAs in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) are still poorly characterized. Methods RNA sequencing with CIRCexplorer2 pipeline was performed to identify circRNAs in 46 tumor-normal paired tissues from OSCC patients. Another set of 48 head and neck squamous cell carcinoma samples from the MiOncoCirc database were utilized as an independent validation. Results Of the 1276 identified high-confidence circRNAs, 154 were differentially expressed between tumor and normal tissues (log2|Fold Change|≥1 and false discovery rate  Conclusion CircRNAs showed a global down-regulation pattern in OSCC tissues, and genes regulated by circRNAs primarily involved in immune and extracellular matrix pathways, which could also affect the OSCC prognosis, indicating that they may serve as potential prognostic biomarkers.