Fig. 4

Differentially expressed circRNA functional analysis between NC and CCI rats. a Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways enriched by DEcircRNAs. The vertical axis is the pathway category. The horizontal axis is the −log10 (p value) of the pathway and the number of differentially expressed circRNAs (DEcircRNAs). Different colors are used to distinguish cellular processes, environmental information processing, human diseases, metabolism and organismal systems. b The most enriched Gene Ontology (GO) terms of DEcircRNAs. The vertical coordinate is the enriched GO terms, and the horizontal coordinate is the rich factor. Rich factor value represents the enrichment degree. The size of the points represents the number of DEcircRNAs in the term. The colors of the points correspond to different p value ranges. c CircRNA–microRNA competing endogenous RNA network. The red nodes represent the upregulated circRNAs, and the green nodes represent the downregulated circRNAs. The size of each node represents the functional connectivity of each circRNA. The line color indicates potential interactions between circRNAs and microRNAs, which were predicted by using TargetScan and miRanda. d CircRNA expression changes validated by quantitative PCR (qPCR). qPCR analysis of differences in the expression levels of DEcircRNAs in the dorsal root ganglion between the CCI model and NC groups. The results were calculated by normalizing to GAPDH in the same sample with the 2^−ΔΔCt method. Changes in relative levels of circRNAs expressed as fold of the controls. All values are expressed as the mean ± SEM, Student’s t test, *p < 0.05 (n = 3)