Association of Circulating Biomarkers of lnc-IGSF3-1:1, SCOC-AS1, and SLC8A1-AS1 with Salt Sensitivity of Blood Pressure in Chinese Population

Accumulating evidence suggested that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) could play biological roles in cardiovascular diseases. We investigated whether lncRNAs can serve as biomarkers for salt sensitivity of blood pressure (SSBP). Participants were divided into salt-sensitive (SS) and salt-resistant (SR) ones by oral saline test. LncRNAs were tested by microarray (N = 20) and two-stage qRT-PCR (N = 89 and 228). We identified five differently expressed lncRNAs (lnc-IGSF3-1:1, SCOC-AS1, SLC8A1-AS1, KCNQ1OT1, and lnc-GNG-10-3:1) between SS and SR. In single-lncRNA analyses, lnc-IGSF3-1:1 displayed better diagnostic performance in hypertensive patients (AUC = 0.840), while SCOC-AS1 in normotensive (AUC = 0.810). In multi-lncRNA analyses, lnc-IGSF3-1:1 + SCOC-AS1 + SLC8A1-AS1 combination showed the best diagnostic performance in hypertensive (AUC = 0.853) and normotensive groups (AUC = 0.873). We constructed a lncRNA-mRNA-GO-KEGG-disease network by bioinformatic analysis; lnc-IGSF3-1:1 and SLC8A1-AS1 were identified as hub biomarkers. Our findings suggest that lnc-IGSF3-1:1, SCOC-AS1, and SLC8A1-AS1 may represent as genetic susceptible biomarkers for SSBP, and had different SS diagnostic performance in hypertensive patients and normotensive individuals.