Molecular Genetics Of Essential Hypertension In Tibetan Studies

Human essential hypertension is a multi-factorial trait and thought to be resulted from the interaction of genetic and environment factors. A variety of approaches have been attempted in order to elucidate the genetic basis of hypertension mainly through the investigation of candidate genes, which are through to be key components in the physiological mechanisms regulating blood pressure. Components of the renin-angiotensin system have been repeatedly investigated as a cardinal source of candidate genes for essential hypertension. In particular, suggestive or significant association has been detected in some studies between the angiotensinogen (AGT), angiotensin I converting enzyme (ACE), and angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT₁R) gene with hypertension .Although variants in these genes have shown association with hypertension in some studies, these associations are often not reproducible in studies of other populations. These inconsistent results from previous association studies of various candidate genes with hypertension may have resulted from differences in the polymorphisms frequencies that construct the specific genetic architecture of different ethnic population. As a consequence, the relative contributions of any given variant varies from the different studied populations. One gene may be responsible for the disorder in on population, but not necessarily in another population. Based on this, reproduction of the finding in a different ethnic population is considered to be important. In addition, finding appropriately homogenous case and control group, which known to be of common origin, with similar environmental exposures and genetic or ethnic background is a good way to cut down the problematic heterogeneity hampering hypertension genetics research.Genotyping of multiple diallelic sites, especially dense single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) sites, is now available for genetic studies of human disease. It is more powerful to focus on the transmission of multilocus haplotypes, as opposed to alleles at individual loci. Therefore, haplotype analysis is mandatory in this regard and has become an increasingly popular tool for population-genetic studies and disease-gene discovery. However the wealth of haplotype information has created a need for efficient...