Construction of circRNA-miRNA-mRNA Network Involved in Pituitary Adenoma using High-Throughput Sequencing and Bioinformatics Analysis

Abstract

We conducted a study to identify circular RNAs associated with invasive non-functioning pituitary adenomas and chemoresistance, as well as to construct a competitive endogenous RNA network. We performed circular RNA expression profiling of 10 specimens using RNA sequencing and identified 37 differentially expressed circular RNAs, which were validated using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. We also detected 26 differentially expressed microRNAs and 388 differentially expressed messenger RNAs using microarray expression profiles downloaded from GSE191113. We predicted the interaction among differentially expressed circular RNAs, differentially expressed microRNAs and differentially expressed messenger RNAs and constructed a circular RNA-microRNA-messenger RNA regulatory network. Our comprehensive bioinformatic analysis revealed the regulatory pathways associated with PA invasion and chemoresistance. Enrichment analysis of differentially expressed circular RNAs revealed their association with non-functioning pituitary adenomas invasion and drug resistance. We established a protein-protein interaction network and identified four hub genes (suppressor of cytokine signaling 3, leptin receptor, interleukin 6 receptor and protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor-type C). Overall, our study provides valuable insights into the invasive and drug-resistance nature of non-functioning pituitary adenomas and could be useful in identifying potential biomarkers or therapeutic targets for invasive non-functioning pituitary adenomas