Objectives: This study aims to investigate the association between hsa_circ_0037897 and essential hypertension (EH) and to evaluate the diagnostic value of biomarker hsa_circ_0037897 in EH. Methods: This study included 92 EH patients and 92 sex- and age- (±3 years) matched subjects as control. qRT-PCR was performed to measure the expression level of circRNA and miRNA. Logistic regression analysis model was used to assess independent association between hsa_circ_0037897 and EH. Results: The expression level of hsa_circ_0037897 in EH patients was significantly higher (p < .001) compared to the control group, while hsa-miR-145-5p had significantly lower expression(p = .002) than the control group. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of hsa_circ_0037897 was 0.656. Furthermore, the AUC increased to 0.714 when hsa_circ_0037897 was combined with hsa-miR-145-5p, BMI and smoking. Conclusion: The present results suggested that the high expression of hsa_circ_0037897 may be a risk factor for EH, and hsa_circ_0037897 has certain diagnostic value for EH.
Keywords: circRNA; diagnostic value; essential hypertension; miRNA; risk factor.