Profiles of differentially expressed circRNAs in esophageal and breast cancer

Introduction: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) function as efficient microRNA sponges with gene-regulatory potential and are promising cancer biomarkers. In this study, we used the Arraystar Human circRNA Array to construct a genome-wide circRNA profile of esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC) and breast cancer (BC). Patients and methods: Expression levels between cancer lesions and adjacent normal-appearing tissues were compared. We observed 469 upregulated circRNAs and 275 downregulated circRNAs in ESCC. Hsa_circRNA_103670 was upregulated 20.3-fold, while hsa_circRNA_030162 was downregulated 12.1-fold. For BC, 715 circRNAs were upregulated, and 440 circRNAs were downregulated. Hsa_circRNA_005230 was upregulated 12.2-fold, while hsa_circRNA_406225 was downregulated 12.4-fold. Results: When we set the criteria as fold change in expression >= 2 between cancer and adjacent normal-appearing tissue with a P-value <0.01, there were 22 common circRNAs (11 upregulated and 11 downregulated) in relation to both ESCC and BC. Gene ontology and the Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes analyses showed that these circRNAs were involved in the tumorigenesis of human cancers. Conclusion: Our study revealed that circRNAs are promising candidates as valuable biomarkers for ESCC and BC, although relevant research is still in its infancy and the functional role of specific circRNAs in tumorigenesis is just starting to be elucidated.