Comprehensive analysis of exosomal circRNA, lncRNA and mRNA profiles to identify the potential RNAs involved in the pathogenesis of venous malformation.

BACKGROUND: Venous malformation (VM) is a kind of congenital vascular anomaly with high incidence of recurrence, detailed pathogenesis and standard treatment of VM still lack now. Increasing evidence showed exosomal RNA plays a pivotal role in various diseases. However, the underlying mechanism of VM basing on the potential differentially exosomal RNAs remains unclear.

METHODS: Comparative high-throughput sequencing with serum exosomes from three VM patients and three healthy donors was used to explore differentially expressed (DE) circRNAs, DE lncRNAs and DE mRNAs involving the formation of VM. We identified and verified DE circRNAs, DE lncRNAs and DE mRNAs via qRT-PCR assay. We explored the potential functions of these exosomal DE non-coding RNAs via performing further Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analysis. Besides, circRNA / lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA linkages were also constructed to find their potential relationships in VM.

RESULTS: 121 circRNAs, 53 lncRNAs and 42 mRNAs (|log2 FC|≥2.0, FDR < 0.05, n = 3) were determined to be differentially expressed. QRT-PCR validated these top changed DE circRNAs, lncRNAs and mRNAs had significant expression changes. Functional studies demonstrated that DE circRNAs plays a pivotal role in thyroid hormone signaling pathway, DE lncRNAs functions as a key regulator in MAPK signaling pathway and DE miRNAs participates in the process of hepatocellular carcinoma mostly.

CONCLUSION: Our study comprehensively depicted exosomal DE non-coding RNAs networks related to the pathogenesis of VM which can provide new insight, novel target for treating VM.