Dysfunction of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) mediates intracranial aneurysm (IA). KDR is reported to alleviate IA progression via promoting VSMC proliferation, while the upstream regulators are still unclear. Arterial wall tissues at the aneurysm site from 12 patients were obtained. The real-time PCR result indicated that circRNA_0020397 was down-regulated, but miR-138 was up-regulated in artery wall tissues and cells of IA. Overexpressed circRNA_0020397 promoted proliferation of human umbilical artery SMCs. MiR-138 negatively regulated KDR via binding with 3'UTR of KDR mRNA. The expression of circRNA_0020397 was negatively correlated with miR-138. In conclusion, our findings demonstrated that decreased expression of circRNA_0020397 in IA may contribute to the decreased VSMC proliferation via increasing miR-138 expression and subsequently decreasing KDR expression.

中文翻译：

---

circ_0020397在颅内动脉瘤中的表达降低可能是通过增加miR-138的表达并随后降低KDR的表达而导致血管平滑肌细胞增殖的降低。

血管平滑肌细胞（VSMC）的功能障碍介导颅内动脉瘤（IA）。据报道，KDR通过促进VSMC增殖来减轻IA的进展，而上游监管者仍不清楚。获得了来自12名患者的动脉瘤部位的动脉壁组织。实时PCR结果表明，在IA的动脉壁组织和细胞中，circRNA_0020397被下调，而miR-138被上调。过量表达的circRNA_0020397促进人脐动脉SMC的增殖。MiR-138通过与KDR mRNA的3'UTR结合而对KDR产生负调控。circRNA_0020397的表达与miR-138负相关。结论，