Case Control Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 14, 2023; 29(22): 3482-3496
Published online Jun 14, 2023. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v29.i22.3482
Plasma exosomal hsa_circ_0079439 as a novel biomarker for early detection of gastric cancer
Xiao Li, Yan-Li Lin, Jia-Kang Shao, Xiao-Jie Wu, Xiang Li, He Yao, Fa-Liang Shi, Long-Song Li, Wen-Gang Zhang, Zheng-Yao Chang, Ning-Li Chai, You-Liang Wang, En-Qiang Linghu
Xiao Li, Long-Song Li, Wen-Gang Zhang, Ning-Li Chai, En-Qiang Linghu, Department of Gastroenterology, The First Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China
Xiao Li, Jia-Kang Shao, Long-Song Li, Wen-Gang Zhang, Zheng-Yao Chang, Medical School of Chinese PLA, Beijing 100853, China
Xiao Li, Yan-Li Lin, Xiao-Jie Wu, Xiang Li, He Yao, Fa-Liang Shi, You-Liang Wang, Beijing Institute of Biotechnology, Beijing 100071, China
Author contributions: Chai NL, Wang YL, and Linghu EQ designed the study; Li X, Shao JK, Li LS, Zhang WG, and Chang ZY collected the plasma samples; Li X, Lin YL, Wu XJ, Yao H, Shi FL, and Li X performed the dd-PCR test and data analysis; Li X, Lin YL, and Shao JK contributed equally to this work, and they should be considered as co-first authors; Chai NL, Wang YL, and Linghu EQ were co-corresponding authors; and all authors approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the National Key Research and Development Program, No. 2019YFA0903802, 2022YFC2503600, and 2016YFC1303601.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the ethics committee of Chinese PLA General Hospital.
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was obtained from all participants in this study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: En-Qiang Linghu, PhD, Chief Physician, Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, The First Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, No. 28 Fuxing Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100853, China. linghuenqiang@vip.sina.com
Received: April 16, 2023
Peer-review started: April 16, 2023
First decision: April 28, 2023
Revised: May 4, 2023
Accepted: May 11, 2023
Article in press: May 11, 2023
Published online: June 14, 2023
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Gastric cancer (GC) is a major health problem worldwide, especially in East Asian countries, and GC has a poor prognosis in most patients due to late detection. Therefore, accurate early detection of GC is one of the most urgent issues in its management.

Research motivation

A number of studies have demonstrated that circular RNAs (circRNAs) play an important role in GC progression, invasion, and metastasis. However, the utility of exosomal circRNAs for early detection of GC is largely unknown.

Research objectives

To analyze the expression levels of plasma exosomal circRNAs from GC patients in different clinical stages to identify a novel biomarker for early detection of GC.

Research methods

Healthy donors (HDs) and GC patients diagnosed by pathology were recruited. Based on the results of whole-transcriptome RNA sequencing, the expression profiles of circRNAs were analyzed by bioinformatics methods and validated by droplet digital polymerase chain reaction. Then we compared the diagnostic efficiency of plasma exosomal circRNAs and standard serum biomarkers.

Research results

The expression levels of exosomal hsa_circ_0079439 were obviously higher in GC patients than in HDs (P < 0.0001). And the area under the curve value of exosomal hsa_circ_0079439 was obviously higher than those of carcinoembryonic antigen, carbohydrate antigen (CA)19-9, CA72-4, alpha-fetoprotein, and CA125 (0.8433 vs 0.5732, 0.5362, 0.5203, 0.5024, and 0.5352, respectively).

Research conclusions

Plasma exosomal hsa_circ_0079439 is a prospective biomarker for the diagnosis of GC.

Research perspectives

Multicenter studies with larger sample sizes are encouraged to obtain more accurate results for the early diagnosis of GC.