The expression of circular RNAs in tumor tissues from three non-cirrhotic hepatocellular carcinoma patients and three cirrhotic hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Six frozen hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) samples (three without cirrhotic and three with cirrhotic background) were selected to analyze the circRNA expression profile through circRNA-seq. A total of 20334 circRNAs were identified in these tumor tissues, which were widely distributed in all chromosomes. Differential analysis revealed that 393 were significantly dysregulated in non-cirrhotic HCC when compared with cirrhotic HCC tissues (log2(fold change) > 1 and p < 0.05). Our study undoubtedly provide a new insight in investigating the initiation of HCC. Overall design: circRNA-seq was employed to identify the dysregulated circRNAs between non-cirrhotic and cirrhotic HCC tissues