An association study in essential hypertension using functional polymorphisms in lymphotoxin-|[agr]| gene|[ast]|

doi:doi:10.1016/j.amjhyper.2004.07.010

American Journal of Hypertension homepage

Am J Hypertens (2004) 17, 1045–1049; doi: 10.1016/j.amjhyper.2004.07.010

An association study in essential hypertension using functional polymorphisms in lymphotoxin- gene^*

Tomohiro Nakayama¹, Masayoshi Soma², Naoyuki Sato³, Akira Haketa², Kotoko Kosuge², Noriko Aoi², Mikano Sato², Yoichi Izumi², Koichi Matsumoto², Katsuo Kanmatsuse² and Shinichiro Kokubun¹

¹Division of Receptor Biology, Advanced Medical Research Center, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan
²Second Department of Internal Medicine, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan
³Division of Genetic and Genomic Medicine, Advanced Medical Research Center, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

Correspondence: Dr. Tomohiro Nakayama, Division of Receptor Biology, Advanced Medical Research Center, Nihon University School of Medicine, Ooyaguchi-kamimachi 30-1, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo 173-8610, Japan E-mail: tnakayam@med.nihon-u.ac.jp

^*Supported by a grant from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Japan (High-Tech Research Center, Nihon University), and research grants from the alumni association of Nihon University School of Medicine and the Tanabe Biomedical Conference, Japan.

Received 4 May 2004; Revised 2 July 2004; Accepted 9 July 2004.

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Abstract

Background: Lymphotoxin- alpha (LTA), a member of the tumor necrosis factor family, is a cytokine produced by lymphocytes. The substance LTA mediates a wide variety of inflammatory, immunostimulatory, and antiviral responses. In 2002, LTA was identified as a major risk factor for myocardial infarction (MI) in Japanese individuals, in a large-scale case-control study using 92,788 gene-based single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers in the whole human genome. Essential hypertension (EH) is thought to be a multifactorial disorder involved in endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis. Although hypertension is one of the greatest risk factors for MI, there have been no reports estimating the association between EH and LTA. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the association between EH and the LTA gene.

Methods: In the present study, we assessed the association between EH and SNP and haplotypes of the LTA gene in a case-control study of 202 EH patients and 217 age-matched normotensive control subjects.

Results: The overall distribution of genotypes for each SNP did not significantly differ between the two groups. Furthermore, the haplotype analysis revealed no association between the EH and normotensive groups.

Conclusions: Polymorphisms of the LTA gene were not associated with EH. This finding suggests differences in genetic backgrounds between EH and MI.