Plasma Lipidomic Subclasses and Risk of Hypertension in Middle-Aged and Elderly Chinese

Zhenhua Niu; Qingqing Wu; Yaogan Luo; Di Wang; He Zheng; Yanpu Wu; Xiaowei Yang; Rong Zeng; Liang Sun; Xu Lin

doi:10.1007/s43657-022-00057-y

Plasma Lipidomic Subclasses and Risk of Hypertension in Middle-Aged and Elderly Chinese

Phenomics. 2022 Jun 14;2(5):283-294. doi: 10.1007/s43657-022-00057-y. eCollection 2022 Oct.

Authors

Zhenhua Niu^#¹, Qingqing Wu^#², Yaogan Luo¹, Di Wang¹, He Zheng¹, Yanpu Wu¹, Xiaowei Yang¹, Rong Zeng^#^{2

3

4}, Liang Sun^#¹, Xu Lin^#^{1

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 320 Yue-yang Rd., Shanghai, 200031 China.
² Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 200031 China.
³ Key Laboratory of Systems Biology, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, 310024 China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Systems Health Science of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hangzhou, 310024 China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

While disrupted lipid metabolism is a well-established risk factor for hypertension in animal models, the links between various lipidomic signatures and hypertension in human studies remain unclear. We aimed to examine associations between plasma lipidomic profiles and prevalence of hypertension among 2248 community-living Chinese aged 50-70 years. Hypertension was defined according to 2020 International Society of Hypertension global hypertension practice guidelines and 2018 Chinese guidelines. In total, 728 plasma lipidomic species were profiled using high-coverage targeted lipidomics. After multivariate adjustment, including lifestyle, body mass index, blood lipids, and sodium intake, 110 metabolites from nine lipidomic subclasses showed significant associations with hypertension, among which phosphatidylethanolamines (PEs) had the strongest association. Eleven lipidomic signals for hypertension risk were further identified from the nine subclasses, including PE(18:0/18:2) (OR per SD, 1.49; 95% confidence intervals, 1.30-1.69), phosphatidylcholine (PC) (18:0/18:2) (1.27; 1.13-1.43), phosphatidylserine (18:0/18:0) (1.24; 1.09-1.41), lysophosphatidylinositol (18:1) (1.17; 1.06-1.29), triacylglycerol (52:5) (1.38; 1.18-1.61), diacylglycerol (16:0/18:2) (1.42; 1.19-1.69), dihydroceramide (24:0) (1.25; 1.09-1.43), hydroxyl-sphingomyelins (SM[2OH])C34:1 (1.19; 1.07-1.33), lysophosphatidylcholine (20:1) (0.86; 0.78-0.95), SM(OH)C38:1 (0.87; 0.79-0.96), and PC (18:2/20:1) (0.84; 0.75-0.94). Principal component analysis also showed that a factor mainly containing specific PEs was positively associated with hypertension (1.20; 1.09-1.33). Collectively, our study revealed that disturbances in multiple circulating lipidomic subclasses and signatures, especially PEs, were significantly associated with the prevalence of hypertension in middle-aged and elderly Chinese. Future studies are warranted to confirm our findings and determine the mechanisms underlying these associations.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s43657-022-00057-y.

Keywords: Asian population; Hypertension; Lipidomic profiles; Phosphatidylethanolamines.