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Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common chronic degenerative joint disease characterized by articular cartilage degeneration and synovitis. CircRNAs are increasingly being recognized as functional endogenous RNAs with a stable structure and high tissue specificity. Recent studies have shown that some circRNAs may be involved in the initiation and progression of OA and that there is differential expression of circRNAs in chondrocytes in vitro isolated from patients with OA.

Purposes: In this study, we aimed to determine if circRNA levels in the peripheral blood of Chinese Han patients with OA would be diagnostic based on the previous in vitro studies.

Methods: We collected peripheral blood samples from 25 patients suffering from OA and 25 healthy controls and measured hsa_circ_0032131_CBC1 RNA levels through quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR). The statistical basis for evaluating the diagnostic value was to calculate the area under the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve.

Results: The results of the qRT-PCR for hsa_circ_0032131_CBC1 were consistent with those of the microarray analysis. The ROC curve shows that hsa_circ_0032131 holds diagnostic value for OA (0.8455, p < 0.01).

Conclusions: Our research indicates that differentially expressed circRNAs may be involved in the development of OA and could be used diagnostically.