Genetic susceptibility loci for essential hypertension and blood pressure on chromosome 17 in 147 Chinese pedigrees

OBJECTIVES: We scanned human chromosome 17 to verify previous studies on the chromosome as well as to explore possible new loci of essential hypertension in a Chinese Han population. METHODS: A genomic scan of chromosome 17 with 15 microsatellite markers was conducted in a total of 757 individuals from 147 Chinese hypertension pedigrees. We used three softwares to analyse hypertension as a qualitative trait and blood pressure as quantitative phenotypes linkage analyses in the North group (406 individuals from 78 northern families), the South group (351 individuals from 69 southern families) and the combined group of the Chinese population separately. RESULTS: For qualitative trait, a 7-cM (centiMorgan) interval flanked by D17S831 (7 cM) and D17S938 (15 cM) showed suggestive linkage results (P < 0.00074) in the southern population by SAGE/SIBPAL2. For blood pressure (BP) quantitative phenotypes, the regions with lowest P values in SAGE and highest logarithm of odds (LOD) scores in SOLAR just overlapped this 7-cM interval in the South group for both systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), though these peaks did not yet reach to the suggestive linkage criteria (P = 0.00074, LOD score = 2.2). In the northern population, in a region around 75.0 cM (D17S787) a peak was found with non-parametric-linkage (NPL) score 1.82 for qualitative trait using GENEHUNTER. CONCLUSIONS: In the southern population of China, our results demonstrate that a 7-cM interval region flanked by D17S831 (7 cM) and D17S938 (15 cM) is suggestively linked with hypertension.