Association of circulating miR-155 expression level and inflammatory markers with white coat hypertension

Circulating miR-155 play a vital role in hypertension. The aim of the present study was to explore the association of miR-155 with blood pressure and inflammatory markers, and to investigate the predictive value of circulating miR-155 for white coat hypertension (WCH). This cross-sectional study was continuously enrolled 105 subjects and was divided into three groups based on office blood pressure monitoring and 24-h ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM): normal hypertension, WCH, and hypertension group. Circulating miR-155 was assessed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Spearman correlation coefficient and area under the ROC curve (AUC) were used. We found miR-155 in hypertension group were significantly higher than those in the WCH and normal hypertension group. The level of miR-155 was positively correlated with C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, office systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), and ABMP parameters (24-h SBP, 24-h DBP, 24-h daytime SBP, 24-h daytime DBP, 24-h nighttime SBP and 24 h nighttime DBP) (all P < 0.05). Circulating miR-155 yielded an AUC of 0.843 (95% CI: 0.753, 0.933; P < 0.001) and 0.832 (95% CI: 0.736, 0.928; P < 0.001) for differing hypertension and WCH from control subjects, respectively. Our results suggested that miR-155 was significantly associated with inflammatory markers, and may become a potential noninvasive marker for WCH detection.