Association between circular RNAs expression in serum and gastric cancer

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the association between circular RNAs expression in serum and gastric cancer and evaluate the potential of the related markers in early diagnosis of gastric cancer. Methods: Forty eight gastric cancer cases in Linqu County People's Hospital were selected as case group, and 48 controls matched by age and sex were randomly selected in the gastric cancer screening cohort during the same period. The expression levels of hsa_circ_002059, hsa_circ_0000096 and hsa_circ_0001895 were detected by quantitative real-time PCR. The results were compared between case group and control group. Results: The positive expression rates of hsa_circ_002059, hsa_circ_0000096 and hsa_circ_0001895 were 70.8%, 47.9%, 75.0% in case group, slightly higher than those in control group (58.3%, 31.3%, 60.4%), although P values were all more than 0.05. The expression level medians of the 3 candidate circRNAs expression levels were 1.60% (0-5.64%), 0 (0-0.61%), 0.91% (0.06%-1.88%) in case group, while 0.05% (0-6.07%), 0 (0-0.34%), 0.42% (0-1.39%) in control group, respectively. Conditional logistic regression analysis showed that the association strength of high expressions of 3 candidate circRNAs with gastric cancer showed an increase trend, but the differences had no significance after adjusted by Helicobacter pylori infection, smoking and drinking status (all P>0.05). Further analysis by combining the 3 candidate circRNAs showed the increased strength of association between circRNAs and gastric cancer with the elevated number of positive circRNAs in serum (trend test P=0.040) compared with circRNAs negative persons. Conclusion: Our study preliminarily suggested that the expression of hsa_circ_002059, hsa_circ_0000096 and hsa_circ_0001895 in serum might be correlated with gastric cancer.