RNA Expression Profile of normal fibroblasts (NFs) and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) derived from human Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.

Although how CAFs impact the tumor epithelium is being progressively unveiled, transcriptional processes of lineage plasticity in fibroblasts govern the acquisition and transition of the CAF phenotype are much less understood. Here, to explore the potential involvement of the circular RNAs (circRNAs) in fibroblast activation and phenotype acquisition, we isolated CAFs and NFs from human pancreatic cancer and paired normal pancreatic tissue. Next, we conducted circRNA profiling five CAFs and three paired NFs by high throughput sequencing. Our results showed that clusters of circRNAs were aberrantly expressed in CAFs compared with NFs, and provided potential targets for future treatment of PDAC and novel insights into PDAC microenvironment. Overall design: Analyze circular RNA expression in CAFs and NFs by Next-generation sequencing