Circular RNA circ_100367 as a diagnostic marker for thyroid cancer and its relationship with immune-related factors / 中华内分泌外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the diagnostic value of circular RNA circ_100367 in thyroid cancer (THCA) and its relationship with immune-related factors.Methods:According to the data chip provided by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) website, the differentially expressed circRNAs in THCA were analyzed, then circ_100367 was included in this study. The serum of 175 THCA patients and healthy people were collected, and the expression levels of circ_100367 and its linear transcript DCAF8 mRNA in serum samples were detected by qRT-PCR, and the correlation between circ_100367 and DCAF8 was calculated. The correlation between the expression of circ_100367 and the clinicopathological characteristicsof the patients, immune infiltration level and immunosuppressive factor PD-1 was analyzed.Results:Compared with serum of healthy people (1.00±0.37) , expression level of circ_100367 in serum of THCA patients was significantly increased (1.37±0.41) ( t=8.80, P<0.001) , and there was no significant difference in DCAF8 mRNA expression ( t=1.67, P=0.095) , but circ_100367 was positively correlated with DCAF8 mRNA expression ( r=0.17, P=0.028) . Analysis of expression and clinicopathological characteristics of circ_100367 showed that compared with patients in M0 group (1.26±0.40) , circ_100367 was overexpressed in M1 and Mx patients (1.43±0.40) ( t=2.63, P=0.009) ; compared with N0 patients (1.24±0.36) , circ_100367 was overexpressed in serum of N1 and Nx patients (1.45±0.42) ( t=3.48, P=0.001) ; compared with serum of patients with negative lymph node detection (1.28±0.36) , circ_100367 was overexpressed in serum of positive patients (1.42±0.43) ( t=2.14, P=0.034) ; compared with T1+T2 stage patients (1.30±0.37) , circ_100367 expression was overexpressed in serum ofT3+T4 patients (1.40±0.43) ( t=2.22, P=0.028) . Analysis of the expression and immune infiltration levels of circ_100367 found that highly expressed circ_100367 was associated with CD8+ T cells ( r=0.25, P=0.024) , macrophages ( r=0.22, P=0.038) , CD4+ T cells ( r=0.25, P=0.020) and B cell ( r=0.23, P=0.033) levels. The expression of circ_100367 was also positively correlated with the immunosuppressive factor PD-1 ( r=0.19, P=0.011) . Conclusion:circ_100367 can be used as a marker for the diagnosis of THCA and its expression is strongly correlated with immune-related factors.