Genetics of essential hypertension

• Published in: Human molecular genetics Vol. 13; no. suppl-1; pp. R169 - R175
• Main Authors: Mein, Charles A., Caulfield, Mark J., Dobson, Richard J., Munroe, Patricia B.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Oxford University Press 01.04.2004; Oxford Publishing Limited (England)
• Subjects: Animals; Biological and medical sciences; Classical genetics, quantitative genetics, hybrids; Disease Models, Animal; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Genetic Predisposition to Disease; Genetic Testing; Genetics; Genetics of eukaryotes. Biological and molecular evolution; Genome; Human; Humans; Hypertension - genetics; Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins; Minor Histocompatibility Antigens; Molecular and cellular biology; Pharmacogenetics; Protein-Serine-Threonine Kinases - genetics; Quantitative Trait Loci; Rodentia; Syndrome; WNK Lysine-Deficient Protein Kinase 1; Hypertension; Cardiovascular disease; Genetics; Essential
• ISSN: 0964-6906; 1460-2083; 1460-2083
• DOI: 10.1093/hmg/ddh078

Essential hypertension affects 1 billion people worldwide and its genetic basis is well established. For this review we surveyed the literature on the genetics of hypertension during the past 18 months and we now report the highlights. There has been publication of the two largest genome scans for blood pressure and new loci including significant linkage to chromosome 6q have been reported. The molecular basis of Gordon's syndrome has been partially unravelled with a dual function for WNK4 in ion transport regulation being discovered. There has also been progress in narrowing rodent quantitative trait loci using congenic approaches and several linkage peaks have now been demonstrated to have more than one loci. We also report some of the initial findings from pharmacogenetic studies.