Low expression of hsa_circ_0001811 in gastric cancer and its role in clinical diagnosis

Background As far as gastric cancer is concerned, there is a lack of specific early diagnostic biomarkers in clinical diagnosis. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been found to be stable in gastric cancer tissues and plasma, so they have the potential to become new type of diagnostic biomarkers for gastric cancer. Materials and Methods The hsa_circ_0001811 expressions in gastric cancer tissues and paired non‐cancer tissues, preoperative and postoperative plasma of patients with gastric cancer, and plasma of healthy volunteers were detected using quantitative reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were drawn; and the combined ROC curves were used to analyze their diagnostic values. The correlation between the plasma or tissue hsa_circ_0001811 levels and the clinicopathological factors of gastric cancer was further analyzed. Results Hsa_circ_0001811 was found to be lowly expressed in gastric cancer tissues and plasma from patients with gastric cancer. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) in the gastric cancer tissues and the plasma of patients with gastric cancer was 0.658 and 0.747, respectively. The AUC increased to 0.824 after combination of both. The expression level of hsa_circ_0001811 in gastric cancer tissue correlated with carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) (P = .0347), tissue differentiation (P = .0138), and lymph node metastasis (P = .0234), while plasma hsa_circ_0001811 level was related to carbohydrate antigen (CA19‐9) (P = .0278), lymph node metastasis (P = .0469), distant metastasis (P = .0384), and age (P = .0085). Conclusions The above results indicate that hsa_circ_0001811 may become a new biomarker for clinical diagnosis of gastric cancer.
Sanger sequence results of qRT‐PCR products of hsa_circ_0001811 are consistent with the sequence of target circRNA. Compared with paired non‐cancer tissues, hsa_circ_0001811 was low expressed in gastric cancer tissues (2A); and the expression of plasma specimens one day before surgery in gastric cancer patients was lower, then those in ten days after surgery and plasma samples of healthy volunteers (2B). The AUC of hsa_circ_0001811 in gastric cancer tissues was 0.658, while the AUC in plasma was 0.747. When tissues and plasma were combined used, the AUC increased to 0.824, further showing the higher diagnostic value of hsa_circ_0001811.