Differential expression profiles of circRNA in mice with traumatic heterotopic ossification

To investigate whether circRNAs could participate in the pathological osteogenesis of traumatic heterotopic ossification (HO). RNA sequencing was performed to analyze the circRNA expression profile in mice HO tissues and to investigate the relevant mechanisms. We found that 491 circRNAs were significantly differentially expressed in mouse HO tissues by a fold-change ≥2 and p-value ≤0.05. Among these, 168 circRNAs were upregulated, while 323 were downregulated. A mice traumatic HO model was established by Achilles tenotomy and burn injury. The mice in control were only subjected to a longitudinal skin incision. At 9 weeks after surgery, tissues were harvested for RNA sequencing for analyzing the circRNA expression profile from the tendon insertion into the calcaneus to the distal gastrocnemius in both groups.