Identification of aberrant circular RNA expression and its potential clinical value in primary great saphenous vein varicosities

This study aimed to identify aberrant circRNA expression in primary great saphenous vein varicosities (PGSVVs) and investigate its potential clinical significance. High-throughput sequencing was applied to analyze the differential expression of circRNAs in three paired vein samples of PGSVVs and a control group. Computational bioinformatics analyses, including gene ontology (GO) analysis and encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis, were performed to further enrich microRNA data. Real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to verify the selected aberrant circRNAs in all vein samples, and a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was plotted to evaluate the diagnostic and potential clinical significance. A total of 232 circRNAs were significantly aberrantly expressed in PGSVVs, including 105 and 127 upregulated and downregulated circRNAs, respectively. The predicted top 10 downstream miRNAs of the significantly altered circRNAs are hsa-miR-103a-2-5p, hsa-miR-141-5p, hsa-miR-3692-5p, hsa-miR-4659a-3p, hsa-miR-4659b-3p, hsa-miR-4691-5p, hsa-miR-4778-3p, hsa-miR-6738-3p, hsa-miR-6792-3p and hsa-miR-6873-3p. GO analysis revealed that the most enriched and meaningful biological process, cellular component, and molecular function terms were related to the regulation of catabolic processes, the cytoplasm and ATP binding, respectively. The most enriched and meaningful pathways revealed by KEGG pathway analysis were related to “axon guidance” “vitamin digestion and absorption” and “NF-Kappa B signaling pathway”. Hsa_circ_0006427 (P = 0.007), hsa_circ_0089810 (P = 0.044) and hsa_circ_0005267 (P = 0.049) were significantly downregulated in the PGSVV group relative to their expression levels in the control group, and the area under the ROC curve was 0.9091, 0.8025 and 0.8148, respectively. This study demonstrated that circRNAs were differentially expressed in PGSVVs, and highlights the crucial roles of circRNAs in the pathogenesis of PGSVVs and indicates that hsa_circ_0006427, hsa_circ_0089810 and hsa_circ_0005267 might be potential diagnostic and clinical biological markers.