CircRNAs have been shown to be involved in the development of certain diseases, but their application in prehypertension and hypertension remains unclear. We aimed to explore the potential role of circ_0000284 in revealing the molecular regulatory mechanisms of prehypertension and hypertension. We enrolled a total of 100 patients with normal blood pressure, 100 patients with prehypertension and 100 patients with hypertension. The expression of circ_0000284 among the groups was detected by real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT‒PCR). Multivariate logistic models were constructed combining conventional risk factors with circ_0000284. A receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was used to analyze the diagnostic value of circRNAs in the clinical model. Spearman correlation was used to analyze the correlation of circ_0000284 and the biochemical characteristics of all subjects. The results showed that circ_0000284 was differentially expressed among the normal blood pressure group, prehypertensive group and hypertensive group and showed a significantly upregulated trend in the progression to hypertension (P < 0.05). The ROC curve revealed a high diagnostic ability of circ_0000284 in hypertension in the clinical model (AUC = 0.812). Circ_0000284 also presented a certain ability for early diagnosis of prehypertension (AUC = 0.628). Spearman correlation showed that circ_0000284 was positively correlated with Na and CKMB. Our study suggested that upregulated expression of circ_0000284 was an independent risk factor for prehypertension and hypertension. Circ_0000284 was a potential fingerprint for the early diagnosis of hypertension and distinguished the intermediate stage of hypertension development. Moreover, our study provided new insight into the correlation between circ_0000284 and cardiac injury in the progression to hypertension.
Keywords: Biomarker; CircRNA; Circ_0000284; Hypertension; Prehypertension.
© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to The Japanese Society of Hypertension.