Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2021 Feb 2:2021:8828299.
doi: 10.1155/2021/8828299. eCollection 2021.

Prognostic and Clinicopathological Significance of Circular RNA circ-ITCH Expression in Cancer Patients: A Meta-analysis

Xiao-Dong Sun  1 , Chen Huan  2 , Da-Wei Sun  1 , Guo-Yue Lv  1
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Prognostic and Clinicopathological Significance of Circular RNA circ-ITCH Expression in Cancer Patients: A Meta-analysis

Xiao-Dong Sun et al. Biomed Res Int. .

Abstract

Circular RNAs are a class of RNAs with a covalently closed configuration, and several members of them have been reported to be capable of regulating various biological processes and predicting the outcome of disease. Among them, circular RNA circ-ITCH has been identified to be aberrantly expressed and associated with disease progression in diverse cancers. However, the correlation of circ-ITCH expression with clinicopathological features, as well as the prognosis of cancers, remains inconclusive. Therefore, a meta-analysis was performed to investigate the clinical significance of circ-ITCH in cancers by systematically summarizing all eligible literatures. Up to August 31, 2020, relevant articles were searched in PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane library, Embase, CNKI, and Wanfang databases. Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) and odds ratios (ORs) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. A total of 1604 patients from 14 studies were included in this meta-analysis. The results showed that cancer patients with low circ-ITCH expression were more susceptible to develop lymph node metastasis (OR = 2.25, 95% CI: 1.67-3.02, p ≤ 0.01), larger tumor size (OR = 3.01, 95% CI: 2.01-4.52, p ≤ 0.01), advanced TNM stage (OR = 2.82, 95% CI: 1.92-4.14, p ≤ 0.01), and poor overall survival (OS) (HR = 2.45, 95% CI: 2.07-2.90, p ≤ 0.01, univariate analysis; HR = 2.69, 95% CI: 1.82-3.96, p ≤ 0.01, multivariate analysis). Thus, low circ-ITCH expression was significantly associated with aggressive clinicopathological features and unfavorable outcome in various cancers. Therefore, circ-ITCH may serve as a molecular therapy target and a prognostic marker in human cancers.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

All the authors declared no conflicts of interests in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Literature selection process by following PRISMA guidelines in this meta-analysis.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Forest plots of odds ratios (ORs) for the association between circ-ITCH expression and lymph node metastasis (LNM) (a), TNM stage (b), and tumor size (c). The grey squares and horizontal lines denote the study-specific ORs and 95% CIs, respectively. The area of the squares represents the weight (inverse of the variance) of each study. The diamond represents the pooled OR and 95% CI.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Forest plots of hazard ratios (HRs) for the association between circ-ITCH expression with overall survival (OS) from univariate analysis results (a) and OS from multivariate analysis results (b). The grey squares and horizontal lines denote the study-specific HRs and 95% CIs, respectively. The area of the squares represents the weight (inverse of the variance) of each study. The diamond represents the pooled HR and 95% CI.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Sensitivity analysis between circ-ITCH expression and lymph node metastasis (LNM) (a), TNM stage (b), tumor size (c), overall survival (OS) via univariate analysis results (d), and OS from multivariate analysis results (e).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Funnel plots for the meta-analysis with overall survival (OS) from univariate analysis result.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Patop I. L., Wust S., Kadener S. Past, present, and future of circRNAs. The EMBO Journal. 2019;38(16) doi: 10.15252/embj.2018100836. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Memczak S., Jens M., Elefsinioti A., et al. Circular RNAs are a large class of animal RNAs with regulatory potency. Nature. 2013;495(7441):333–338. doi: 10.1038/nature11928. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wilusz J. E. A 360 degrees view of circular RNAs: from biogenesis to functions. Wiley interdisciplinary reviews RNA. 2018;9(4) - PMC - PubMed
    1. Han D., Li J., Wang H., et al. Circular RNA circMTO1 acts as the sponge of microRNA-9 to suppress hepatocellular carcinoma progression. Hepatology. 2017;66(4):1151–1164. doi: 10.1002/hep.29270. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Hansen T. B., Wiklund E. D., Bramsen J. B., Villadsen S. B., Statham A. L., Clark S. J. miRNA-dependent gene silencing involving Ago2-mediated cleavage of a circular antisense RNA. The EMBO Journal. 2011;30(21):4414–4422. doi: 10.1038/emboj.2011.359. - DOI - PMC - PubMed