Exosomal Circular Ribonucleic Acid–Microribonucleic Acid Expression Profile from Plasma in Alzheimer’s Disease Patients by Bioinformatics and Integrative Analysis

Objective: Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative sickness and increasing with age throughout the world. A substantial body of evidence suggests the role of exosomal noncoding ribonucleic acids in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, but the regulatory mechanisms mediated by these noncoding ribonucleic acids remain extensively unknown. Using plasma samples from Alzheimer’s disease patients, this study explored the exosomal circular ribonucleic acid–microribonucleic acid profiles.

Materials and Methods: The ArrayExpress platform was used to convey data from 3 samples from each group (healthy, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer’s disease). Using plasma exosomes, differentially expressed microribonucleic acids and differentially expressed circular ribonucleic acids were compared between the Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment groups. Afterward, to define pathways, gene ontologies, and networks, differentially expressed microribonucleic acids and differentially expressed circular ribonucleic acids common to both mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease groups were analyzed. Eventually, the selection of hub genes and protein–protein interaction network was analyzed.

Results: A total of common 19 (7 upregulated and 12 downregulated) differentially expressed microribonucleic acids and 24 differentially expressed circular ribonucleic acids were recognized. A total of 4559 target genes were predicted for upregulated differentially expressed microribonucleic acids, while 6504 target genes were identified for downregulated differentially expressed microribonucleic acids, and most of the target genes involved in the phosphoinositide 3-kinases-Akt pathway and that were mostly regulated by hsa-mir-374a-3p, mir-196a-5p, let-205-5p, mir-185-3p, mir-374a-5p, mir-615-3p, let-7c-5p, mir-185-5p. Additionally, 9 hub genes (HSP90AA, ACTB, MAPK1, GSK3B, CCNE2, CDK6, AKT1, IGF1R, CCND1) were revealed as the genes considerably related to Alzheimer’s disease by a protein–protein interaction network using the cytohubba in Cytoscape software.

Conclusion: Our findings provide a new perspective on how microribonucleic acids could connect with circular ribonucleic acids in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease.

Cite this article as: Besli N, Sarikamis B, Kalkan Cakmak R, Kilic U. Exosomal circular ribonucleic acid–microribonucleic acid expression profile from plasma in Alzheimer’s disease patients by bioinformatics and integrative analysis. Eurasian J Med., 2023;55(3):218-227.