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Updated: Dec 24, 2025
Identification of Circular RNAs using RNA Sequencing
Published on: November 14, 2019
Diagnostic and prognostic value of circular RNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma
Jin-Yu Sun1, Xiao-Yu Zhang2, Yi-Zhi Cao1
1Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Sparkfire Scientific Research Group, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
Insights
Circular RNAs (circRNAs) show promise as biomarkers for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). These stable molecules play roles in cancer development and could improve early diagnosis and prognosis for HCC patients.
Area of Science:
- Oncology
- Molecular Biology
- Biochemistry
Background:
- Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major global health burden with poor survival rates due to late diagnosis.
- Current diagnostic biomarkers for HCC are limited, leading to challenges in early detection and treatment.
- Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a novel class of RNA molecules with unique structural properties.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the characteristics of circRNAs.
- To summarize the roles of circRNAs in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) development and progression.
- To evaluate the potential of circRNAs as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for HCC.
Main Methods:
- Literature review of studies on circRNAs in HCC.
- Analysis of circRNA expression patterns and functions in carcinogenesis.
- Assessment of circRNAs' diagnostic and prognostic accuracy in HCC patients.
Main Results:
- CircRNAs exhibit distinct roles as either promoters or suppressors in HCC development.
- CircRNAs possess higher stability and abundance compared to linear RNAs, making them ideal biomarkers.
- Accumulating evidence supports circRNAs' potential for accurate HCC diagnosis and prognosis.
Conclusions:
- CircRNAs represent a promising class of biomarkers for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
- Their unique stability and involvement in carcinogenesis offer potential for improved diagnostic and prognostic strategies.
- Further research into circRNAs could significantly advance HCC management and patient outcomes.
Abstract:
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the sixth most common malignant tumour, which has posed a heavy health and financial burden worldwide. Due to limited symptoms at the early stage and the limitation in current biomarkers, HCC patients are usually diagnosed at the advanced stage with a pessimistic overall survival rate. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a subclass of single-stranded RNAs characterized by a covalently closed loop structure without 3'- or 5'-end. With advances in high-throughput sequencing technology and bioinformatics, accumulating studies have demonstrated the promotor or suppressor roles of circRNAs in the carcinogenesis, progression, and metastasis of HCC. Moreover, circRNAs are characteristic of higher abundance, stability and conservation compared with linear RNAs. Therefore, circRNAs have emerged as one of the most promising diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for HCC with reliable accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. In this review, we briefly introduce the characteristics of circRNAs and summarize the roles of circRNAs in the biological procedures of HCC. Furthermore, we provide an overview on the potential diagnostic and prognostic value of circRNAs as biomarkers for patients with HCC. Finally, we discuss future perspectives of circRNAs in cancer research.
