Identifying a urinary peptidomics profile for hypertension in young adults: The African‐PREDICT study

Abstract Hypertension is one of the most important and complex risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). By using urinary peptidomics analyses, we aimed to identify peptides associated with hypertension, building a framework for future research towards improved prediction and prevention of premature development of CVD. We included 78 hypertensive and 79 normotensive participants from the African‐PREDICT study (aged 20–30 years), matched for sex (51% male) and ethnicity (49% black and 51% white). Urinary peptidomics data were acquired using capillary‐electrophoresis‐time‐of‐flight‐mass‐spectrometry. Hypertension‐associated peptides were identified and combined into a support vector machine‐based multidimensional classifier. When comparing the peptide data between the normotensive and hypertensive groups, 129 peptides were nominally differentially abundant (Wilcoxon p  < 0.05). Nonetheless, only three peptides, all derived from collagen alpha‐1(III), remained significantly different after rigorous adjustments for multiple comparisons. The 37 most significant peptides (all p ≤ 0.001) served as basis for the development of a classifier, with 20 peptides being combined into a unifying score, resulting in an AUC of 0.85 in the ROC analysis ( p  < 0.001), with 83% sensitivity at 80% specificity. Our study suggests potential value of urinary peptides in the classification of hypertension, which could enable earlier diagnosis and better understanding of the pathophysiology of hypertension and premature cardiovascular disease development.