Changes in related circular RNAs following ERβ knockdown and the relationship to rBMSC osteogenesis

Recently, several studies have indicated that circular RNAs (circRNAs) play significant roles in various disease; however, little is known about the chronology of estrogen receptor beta (ERβ) deficiency and altered circRNA expression, or their relationship with osteogenesis. Herein, we show through western-blot and quantitative real-time PCR assays, that when ERβ is silenced, the expression of osteogenesis-related proteins and mRNAs were down-regulated. We then performed RNA-Seq to analyze differential circRNA expression between the control and ERβ knockdown group. This analysis revealed that, 146 circRNAs were differentially expressed by fold-change≥2.0, p ≤ 0.05, and, among this group, 68 circRNAs were down-regulated, while 78 were up-regulated. Gene ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) and PANTHER pathway analyses were performed to predict the function of these differentially expressed circRNAs. Finally, co-expressed targets gene, and circRNA-microRNA network were constructed for predicted miRNA sponges. This research suggested that ERβ may through 2:27713879|27755789/2:240822115|240867796-miR-328-5p-mRNA axis to regulate osteogenic differentiation.