Plasma Circular RNAs, Hsa_circRNA_025016, Predicts Postoperative Atrial Fibrillation After Isolated Off-Pump Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

Rationale: Circular RNAs are pervasively expressed in highly diverged eukaryotes. Circular RNAs are more stable in body fluids, however, the link between circular RNA and onset of atrial fibrillation has never been investigated. Objective: To identify plasma circular RNAs for diagnosing onset of atrial fibrillation after the cardiac surgery. Methods and Results: Plasma circular RNAs expression was investigated in participants underwent isolated off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting. First, we used microarray to screen 15 circular RNAs in 30 plasma samples for diagnosing new onset of atrial fibrillation. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction assay was then applied to evaluate the expression of selected circular RNAs. Hsa_circRNA_025016 was upregulated in patients with onset of atrial fibrillation, with a high diagnostic accuracy by area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. The satisfactory diagnostic performance of hsa_circRNA_025016 persisted in validation cohort. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes biological pathway analysis indicated that hsa_circ_025016 could participate in melanogenesis, insulin secretion, and thyroid hormone signaling pathway. There was a positive correlation between hsa_circ_025016 and fast blood glucose in both cohorts. Conclusions: Hsa_circ_025016 is a novel biomarker of onset of atrial fibrillation after isolated off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting. Plasma Circular RNAs before surgery were collected. Plasma of patients with postoperative atrial fibrilltion and Patients without postoperative atrial fibrilltion were detected the expression of circular RNAs.