Abstract
Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been reported to be involved in many diseases. But there is no report on circRNAs in non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA). The purpose of this paper is to explore the circular RNA expression profile and potential functions of circRNAs in NOA patients. We first preformed circRNA expression profiling analysis using a circRNA microarray in testicular samples from NOA and obstructive azoospermia (OA) patients. CircRNAs were validated by qRT-PCR. Bioinformatics analysis were used to construct the ceRNA network. GO and KEGG enrichment analysis were performed by using DAVID. Microarray analysis identified 82 differentially expressed circRNAs in NOA specimens. The differential expression of hsa_circRNA_402130, hsa_circRNA_072697, hsa_circRNA_030050, hsa_circRNA_100812 and hsa_circRNA_406168 was confirmed by qRT-PCR. Enrichment analysis revealed the association of hsa_circRNA_402130 and hsa_circRNA_072697 with multiple signaling pathways. The data indicated that circRNAs were significantly dysregulated in NOA specimens and might involve in the pathogenesis of NOA.
Highlights
Circular RNAs are a class of closed circular RNA molecules that rarely encode proteins and have no 5 ‘caps and 3’ poly(A) tails
Using a threshold of fold change (FC) ≥ 1.5 and a pvalue < 0.05, we identified 82 differentially expressed circRNAs, of which 16 were up-regulated and 66 were down-regulated in nonobstructive azoospermia (NOA) tissues compared with obstructive azoospermia (OA) tissues (Table 1 and Table 2)
Studies demonstrated that non-coding RNAs including miRNAs and lncRNAs participate in the occurrence and development of NOA [13, 18, 22, 23, 25,26,27]
Summary
Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of closed circular RNA molecules that rarely encode proteins and have no 5 ‘caps and 3’ poly(A) tails. Their unique characteristics, such as better stability and resistance to nucleases make circRNAs potential candidates for clinical diagnostic/prognostic biomarkers [1]. Some of them can regulate gene expression by affecting RNA splicing or translating into short peptides [5]. They are conserved among different species, and exhibit tissue-specific and developmental-stage specific traits [6]. The global expression and function of circRNAs in nonobstructive azoospermia (NOA) are largely unknown
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