The association between SA gene and essential hypertension in Han Chinese

Objective: To evaluate the linkage of SA gene locus to essential hypertension (EH) in affected Han Chinese sib pairs and to ascertain the association of SA gene CT79 polymorphism with essential hypertension in Han Chinese hypertensives. Methods: In Han Chinese at Shanghai, 96 random individuals, 80 essentially hypertensive sib pairs with hypertensive family history, 200 essential hypertensives with hypertensive family history and 200 normotensive control (NC) subjects without such family history were enrolled in these serial studies. MF-PCR-SSCP technique was applied to detect the frequency distributions of SA gene microsatellite D16S3046, D16S3136 and D16S3068. The linkage of SA gene locus to essential hypertension was analyzed by Green's IBS for affected siblings. SA gene variant was screened by PCR-SSCP-silver staining and confirmed by DNA sequencing, then an association study was performed to determine whether such variant was associated with essential hypertension. Results: The frequency distributions of SA gene microsatellites D16S3046, D16S3136 and D16S3068 were of high polymorphism. The polymorphism information contents of D16S3046, D16S3136 and D16S3068 were 0.86, 0.82 and 0.80, and the heterozygosities 0.88, 0.71 and 0.77. The linkage of SA gene locus to essential hypertension was not observed; the linkage analysis t values of D16S3046, D16S3136 and D16S3068 were 0.972, 0.622 and 0.236, and the P values 0.384, 0.543 and 0.871, respectively. The C&rarrT substitution was confirmed, but there was no association of such variant with essential hypertension. The frequency distributions of genotypes and alleles in the hypertensive group were not significantly different from those in the normotensive group (P>0.05). Conclusion: SA gene is not linked to or associated with essential hypertension in Han Chinese. SA gene may not be a susceptible gene contributing to the development of essential hypertension in Han Chinese.