Differential expression of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) patients and controls.. Differential expression of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm (AAA) patients and controls.

This study aims at identifying non-coding RNA driving AAA pathogenesis and progression.To fish out AAA-relevant circRNA targets, we took advantage of array technology and profiled differentially expressed circRNAs in AAAs vs. non-AAA human tissue specimens. We then focused on studying circRNA-exerted gene expression regulation at the locus of origin and its implication in AAA disease dynamics. Overall design: We utilized human tissue specimens including 6 non-AAA controls (CTRL, obtained from organ transplant surgery) and 11 AAA aortas collected from elective (e) open repair (OR) surgery.Array chips (Arraystar, #AS-S-CR-H-V2.0) cover all known annotated human circRNAs (13.617 in total), with array probes targeting circRNA-specific junctions, were employed to identify deregulated targets. We discovered that a considerable amount of circRNA transcripts were significantly up- or downregulated in diseased tissue. Most deregulated targets in our dataset originated from circularization of one or multiple mRNA exons.