Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have a great potential as clinical biomarkers; however, specific circRNAs with a diagnostic value for essential hypertension (EH) largely remain to be identified. In the present study, the potential application of Homo sapiens (hsa)_circ_0014243, which was identified to be significantly upregulated in whole blood samples of EH patients in a previous microarray profiling study by our group, in the diagnosis of EH was evaluated. Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis was performed to determine the expression levels of hsa_circ_0014243 and hsa-microRNA (miR)-10a-5p in a total of 178 blood samples collected from 89 healthy controls and 89 patients diagnosed with EH. Divergent primers were designed for circRNAs, while conventional primers were used for miRs. Independent-samples t-tests and bivariate correlation analyses were performed to analyze the association between clinical factors influencing EH and hsa_circ_0014243 expression levels. A receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve was generated to estimate the diagnostic value of hsa_circ_0014243 for EH. Finally, the expression levels of circRNAs and miRNAs were combined to propose a possible prediction model for EH. The results indicated that hsa_circ_0014243 was upregulated in whole blood samples of EH patients compared with that in the controls (P<0.001). Furthermore, the relative expression levels of hsa_circ_0014243 (Δ quantification cycle) were identified to be significantly correlated with age (r=-0.259, P<0.001), high-density lipoprotein levels (r=0.196, P=0.009) and glucose levels (r=-0.204, P=0.006). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of the model using hsa_circ_0014243 as a predictor was 0.732. Of note, the AUC increased to 0.781 when hsa_circ_0014243 levels were combined with hsa-miR-10a-5p levels as predictors. The present results suggest that hsa_circ_0014243 has a crucial role in the genesis and development of EH, and presents a certain diagnostic capability for EH.
Keywords: biomarker; circular RNA; diagnosis; essential hypertension; hsa_circ_0014243.