Circular RNAs as Competing Endogenous RNAs in Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases: Molecular Mechanisms and Clinical Implications

Xue Min; Dong-Liang Liu; Xing-Dong Xiong

doi:10.3389/fcvm.2021.682357

Circular RNAs as Competing Endogenous RNAs in Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases: Molecular Mechanisms and Clinical Implications

Front Cardiovasc Med. 2021 Jul 7:8:682357. doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2021.682357. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Xue Min¹, Dong-Liang Liu¹, Xing-Dong Xiong^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Diagnostics, Institute of Aging Research, Guangdong Medical University, Dongguan, China.
² Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang, China.

Abstract

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) represent a novel class of widespread and diverse endogenous RNA molecules. This unusual class of RNA species is generated by a back-splicing event of exons or introns, resulting in a covalently closed circRNA molecule. Accumulating evidence indicates that circRNA plays an important role in the biological functions of a network of competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA). CircRNAs can competitively bind to miRNAs and abolish the suppressive effect of miRNAs on target RNAs, thus regulating gene expression at the posttranscriptional level. The role of circRNAs as ceRNAs in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases (CVDs) has been recently reported and highlighted. Understanding the underlying molecular mechanism could aid the discovery of therapeutic targets or strategies against CVDs. Here, we review the progress in studying the role of circRNAs as ceRNAs in CVDs, with emphasis on the molecular mechanism, and discuss future directions and possible clinical implications.

Keywords: cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases; ceRNA; circRNA; clinical implication; molecular mechanism.

Publication types

Review