Diagnostic Value of Serum hsa_circ_0141720 in Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke

The current study aims to observe the expression of hsa_circ_0141720 in the serum of patients with acute cerebral infarction (ACI) and to explore its clinical value in the diagnosis of ACI.

Eighty patients with ACI within the previous 48 hours were selected, and 30 healthy persons in the same period were selected as the control. Microarray analysis was performed to evaluate the changes of circRNA profiles, and RT-PCR was used to validate the findings. Pearson's correlation assay was performed to analyze the correlation between the level of hsa_circ_0141720 and other clinical indicators.

Microarray analysis identified eight differentially expressed cirRNAs in the serum of ACI patients. RT-PCR validated that the expression of hsa_circ_0141720 in serum of ACI patients was increased the most. Hence, we mainly focused on hsa_circ_0141720 in the following study. ROC curve analysis showed that when the cutoff value for serum hsa_circ_0141720 was 2.03, the sensitivity and specificity were 89.7% and 95.6%, respectively. Further study showed that enhanced hsa_circ_0141720 expression was positively correlated with the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) scores and infarct volume of ACI patients. Moreover, upregulation of hsa_circ_0141720 was also positively correlated with increased expression of serum interleukin 6 (IL-6) and plasma high-sensitivity C relative protein (hs-CRP) in patients with ACI.

In summary, enhanced expression of hsa_circ_0141720 in the serum of patients with ACI was related to the severity of the disease and it may be used as a new serological index for the diagnosis of ACI.