CircRNA-Seq Analysis for Sciatic Nerve Injury of Rat

Here, we established a rat sciatic nerve injury model and investigated the circRNA expression profiles by Next-generation sequencing. In all, 7222 distinct circRNA candidates were found in these tissues and 4942 of these circRNAs contained at least two unique back-spliced reads. On the basis of expression of circRNA analysis, we found 131 circRNAs to be significantly (p-value<=0.05, Fold-change>=2) differently expressed in injured sciatic nerve tissues compared with matched normal tissues. All these circRNAs are derived from 21 rat chromosomes. Overall design: Establishment of the rat sciatic nerve injury:A 3-mm long sciatic nerve was crushed two times (15 seconds/each time, 3 seconds interval) with a hemostatic forceps. Then, muscle and skin layer were sutured with silk thread, followed by the application of topical antibiotic powder. Sham operation (exposure of the nerve) was performed in the other groups. Under aseptic conditions, all surgical operations were performed by the same surgeon. The rats were sacrificed and a 3 mm long crushed sciatic nerve, together with both nerve ends (1 mm long), was harvested 24 hours after surgery for RNA-seq analysis.