Identification and functional analysis of circRIPK2 in lipopolysaccharide induced chicken macrophages

ABSTRACT

1. It was hypothesised that a circular RIPK2 (circRIPK2) highly expressed in chicken macrophages plays an important role during bacterial infection.

2. After PCR amplification, Sanger sequencing and RNase R exonuclease treatment of chicken macrophages, it was found that circRIPK2 was a stable circular RNA, which was formed by reverse splicing of exons 4 to 9 of the RIPK2.

3. The circRIPK2 can promote the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced cellular injury by reducing cell viability and increasing the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and apoptosis genes.

4. Six miRNAs were identified as interacting with circRIPK2, potentially targeting 1,817 genes, which were significantly enriched in the Wnt signalling pathway, adherens junction and NOD-like receptor signalling pathway.

5. This study provides better understanding of the function of circRIPK2, which may prove a potential biomarker and indicate potential targets for the treatment of bacterial infection.

KEYWORDS:

• circRIPK2
• lipopolysaccharide
• chicken macrophages
• immune response
• miRNAs
• inflammation

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Author contributions

HS designed the experiments and wrote the original manuscript. JT and JG provided the methodology and validated the function of circRIPK2. HL and PS revised the manuscript. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Data availability statement

All data generated or analysed in this study were included in this article.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00071668.2023.2261870

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Science and Technology Innovation Fund of Yangzhou University [X20220654], National Natural Science Foundation of China [31802053], The Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [BK20180907], the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [2019M661950], Jiangsu Postdoctoral Science Foundation [137070510].