Expanding roles of circRNAs in cardiovascular diseases

Xu Liu; Xuelin Yao; Liang Chen

doi:10.1016/j.ncrna.2024.02.001

Expanding roles of circRNAs in cardiovascular diseases

Noncoding RNA Res. 2024 Feb 5;9(2):429-436. doi: 10.1016/j.ncrna.2024.02.001. eCollection 2024 Jun.

Authors

Xu Liu¹, Xuelin Yao^{2

3}, Liang Chen¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Cardiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230001, China.
² Department of Endocrinology, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230001, China.
³ Department of Endocrinology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230022, China.

Abstract

CircRNAs are a class of single-stranded RNAs characterized by covalently looped structures. Emerging advances have promoted our understanding of circRNA biogenesis, nuclear export, biological functions, and functional mechanisms. Roles of circRNAs in diverse diseases have been increasingly recognized in the past decade, with novel approaches in bioinformatics analysis and new strategies in modulating circRNA levels, which have made circRNAs the hot spot for therapeutic applications. Moreover, due to the intrinsic features of circRNAs such as high stability, conservation, and tissue-/stage-specific expression, circRNAs are believed to be promising prognostic and diagnostic markers for diseases. Aiming cardiovascular disease (CVD), one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide, we briefly summarize the current understanding of circRNAs, provide the recent progress in circRNA functions and functional mechanisms in CVD, and discuss the future perspectives both in circRNA research and therapeutics based on existing knowledge.

Keywords: Cardiovascular disease; Circular RNAs; Functional roles; Therapeutic strategy.

Publication types

Review