Assessment of the correlation between circRNA expression and
AS-related clinical findings
To assess whether the six RT-qPCR-validated DECs (hsa_circ_0000702,
hsa_circ_0006209, hsa_circ_0047920, hsa_circ_0001543,
hsa_circ_0072697, hsa_circ_0005076) could be relevant biomarkers of
AS disease, we conducted a series of
ROC curve and correlational analyses. The expression of
hsa_circ_0006209
and hsa_circ_0047920 was detected to be positively
correlated with AS patient CRP
levels (Fig. 5A and 5B), while hsa_circ_0072697 levels were negatively
correlated with ESR and BASDAI levels in these patients (Fig. 5C and
5D). ROC curve analyses indicated that all six DECs were able to
effectively differentiate between AS and control PBMC samples, and
hsa_circ_0072697 exhibited the highest area under the curve value
(AUC: 0.9867; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.9552-1.018;P <0:0001). Therefore, hsa_circ_0072697 may be a
particularly promising diagnostic biomarker for AS (Fig. 6, Table 4).