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. 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.