FAS-mediated circRNA-miRNA-mRNA Crosstalk Network Regulates Immune Cell Infiltration in Cerebral Infarction

New data are accumulating on the involvement of interaction among circular RNAs (circRNAs), microRNAs (miRNAs/miRs), and messenger RNAs (mRNAs) in cerebral infarction (CI). This study aims to illustrate the GEO database-based identification of a circRNA-miRNA-mRNA crosstalk network underlying immune cell infiltration in CI. The differential analysis suggested that 1696 circRNAs, 1989 miRNAs, and 5550 mRNAs that were differentially expressed in CI samples were retrieved from GEO database. GO and KEGG functional enrichment analyses showed that the differentially expressed mRNAs were mainly associated with common risk factors of CI, such as immune and inflammatory response. Next, the circRNA-miRNA pairs and miRNA-mRNA pairs were predicted, and the circRNA-miRNA-mRNA network was constructed by Cytoscape software. Totally, 436 circRNA-miRNA pairs were obtained through the online database, and 2033 miRNA-mRNA pairs were used to construct the circRNA-miRNA-mRNA crosstalk network. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed on the basis of the ceRNA network, followed by key gene identification in the GSE9877 dataset. FAS was identified as the key gene in CI. The constructed FAS-mediated circRNA-miRNA-mRNA crosstalk network included five upregulated circRNAs (hsa_circ_0075341, hsa_circ_0049637, hsa_circ_0001085, hsa_circ_0004808 and hsa_circ_0092337) and five downregulated miRNAs (hsa-miR-92a-2-5p, hsa-miR-1245b-3p, hsa-miR-592, hsa-miR-224-5p, and hsa-miR-30e-3p). Furthermore, the CIBERSORT algorithm indicated that FAS was associated with immune cell infiltration in CI. In conclusion, this study revealed a role for FAS-centered circRNA-miRNA-mRNA crosstalk network in regulating immune cell infiltration of CI, which may be a viable target for CI prevention.