自发性高血压大鼠肾皮质中环状RNA表达谱分析OACSTPCD

Objective To investigate the differential expression profiles of circular RNAs(circRNAs)in the renal cortex of spontaneously hypertensive rats(SHR)and WKY rats.Methods Six 13-week-old male SHR and WKY rats each were selectd.Total RNA was extracted from the renal cortex of these rats,and high-throughput sequencing technology was used to detect circRNAs expression levels in the renal cortex.Differentially expressed circRNAs in the SHR and WKY rat renal cortex were analyzed with Gene Ontology(GO)annotation,and pathway annotation and enrichment analysis were conducted using the KEGG database to predict the molecular functions of differentially expressed circRNAs.Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction(RT-qPCR)was used to verify some of the differentially expressed circRNAs.Results Compared to the renal cortex of WKY rats,249 circRNAs with more than a twofold difference and P<0.05 in expression were revealed in the renal cortex of the SHR rats,with 100 downregulated and 149 upregulated.Forty circRNAs that may be related to essential hypertension(EH)were selected,including19 downregulated and 21 upregulated.RT-qPCR confirmed 12 differentially expressed circRNAs,of which 5 were downregulated and 7 were upregulated.Conclution There is a large number of differentially expressed circRNAs in the renal cortex of SHR compared to WKY rats,suggesting that circRNAs may play a role in the molecular mechanisms of hypertension.