Fig 4.

Circ102049 promoted the tumor metastasis through a FRAS1‐dependent mechanism. (A) mRNA expression profiles between 10 primary CRC tumors without liver metastasis and 10 primary tumor tissues with liver metastasis through mRNA microarray were performed, and 484 dysregulated mRNA were identified by hierarchical clustering. (B) The co‐expression analysis presented the potential interacted genes of circ102049. (C,D) GSEA analysis showed that metastasis‐related signaling such as adherens junction, Notch signaling, Wnt signaling and peroxisome were involved in colorectal liver metastasis. (E) Venn analysis showed the common characteristic elements among the compared groups; 25 genes might be correlated with circ102049. (F) qRT‐PCR analysis confirmed that FRAS1 was the most significantly up‐regulated gene after circ102049 overexpression in SW1116 cells. (G) The FRAS1 mRNA expression in 202 CRC patients with (n = 65) and without liver metastasis (n = 137) was determined by qRT‐PCR (*P < 0.05; error bars represent standard deviation).