Plasma circular RNA panel acts as a novel diagnostic biomarker for colorectal cancer detection

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) can function as key regulators of oncogenic processes, making them ideal diagnostic biomarkers of many cancers. However, few studies to date have reported on plasma circRNA profiles associated with colorectal cancer (CRC). To that end, we herein employed microarray- and qRT-PCR-based approaches to evaluate circulating plasma circRNAs in CRC patients. Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) values were then used to assess the diagnostic utility of these circRNAs. We ultimately determined that hsa_circ_0001900, hsa_circ_0001178, and hsa_circ_0005927 were upregulated in the plasma of CRC patients relative to healthy controls and were correlated with clinicopathological findings in these patients. We further established that a panel composed of these three circRNAs (CircPanel) was able to differentiate between patients with and without CRC more reliably than CEA (carcinoembryonic antigen) (AUC, 0.859 [95% confidence interval, CI: 0.805-0.903] vs. 0.698 [0.631-0.759], P=0.0003), enabling us to detect patients with CEA-negative CRC. In conclusion, our study reveals that CircPanel could serve as a promising potential biomarker for CRC diagnosis.