Clinical significance and potential mechanism of hsa_circ_0006892 in acute respiratory distress syndrome complicated with pulmonary fibrosis

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a serious acute lung injury, and can develop into pulmonary fibrosis (PLF). Circular RNAs (circRNAs) regulatory network in ARDS is important. The study explored the role of hsa_circ_0006892 in the occurrence of ARDS and the development of PLF.

Hsa_circ_0006892 levels were verified in serum samples of 203 ARDS patients with or without PLF, and the diagnostic value was evaluated through ROC. Cox regression analysis was performed to identify PLF-related factors. The downstream target genes were predicted online. The function and pathway of key genes were annotated through GO and KEGG pathway analysis. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis was performed for the examination of protein interactions.

qRT-PCR determined the downregulation of hsa_circ_0006892 in the serum of both ARDS and PLF patients. Hsa_circ_0006892 can differentiate ARDS from controls, and independently related to the development of PLF. Nine targeted related miRNAs were integrated with dysregulated miRNAs from GSE27430 dataset. Clinically, miR-486-3p was the only miRNA that was significantly different in both ARDS and PLF groups, and was determined to be the target of hsa_circ_0006892. 180 target genes of miR-486-3p were predicted, which were integrated with ARDS and PLF-related GSE84439 and GSE38958 datasets. Go and KEGG pathway analysis identified Ras signaling pathway as the most commonly enriched pathway in the overlapped genes.

The present results identified the differentially expressed hsa_circ_0006892 in ARDS and PLF, and suggested a possible molecular mechanism of hsa_circ_0006892/miR-486-3p axis.