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Impact of maternal endothelial nitric oxide synthase gene polymorphisms on blood pressure, protein excretion and fetal outcome in pregnancy

Journal of Human Hypertension volume 22, pages 641–647 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

A genetic association study was conducted to assess whether genetically determined alterations of the nitric oxide system are associated with clinical markers of pre-eclampsia. A large number of Caucasian women were consecutively included after delivery and genotyped for the endothelial nitric oxide synthase gene (NOS3) polymorphisms G894T, T789C (n=1502) and intron 4a/b (n=2186). There are no significant differences in mean blood pressure (BP), protein excretion or new-onset peripheral oedema between any of the genotypes over the course of pregnancy. Neither particular haplotypes nor the combined presence of any two alleles is associated with those markers of pre-eclampsia. The maternal polymorphisms do not seem to influence fetal growth, birth weight or the incidence of congenital malformations. We demonstrate in a large Caucasian population that maternal polymorphisms of the NOS3 gene are not related to clinical markers of pre-eclampsia. The functional relevance of the NOS3 variants alone does not seem to be strong enough to affect BP regulation during pregnancy.

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Acknowledgements

This study was partially supported by grants of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) to Berthold Hocher (HO 1665/5-2) and Pontus Persson (PE 388/20).

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Author notes

  1. B Hocher and Y-P Chen: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Cardiovascular Research/Institute of Pharmacology, Charité Campus Mitte, Berlin, Germany

    B Hocher, Y-P Chen, S Hügle, J Repey, K Krause, M Godes & T Pfab

  2. Department of Infectious Diseases, Jinan University Hospital, Guangzhou, China

    Y-P Chen

  3. Department of Nephrology, Charité Campus Mitte, Berlin, Germany

    T Slowinski

  4. Dr Margarete Fischer-Bosch Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Stuttgart and University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany

    E Schaeffeler

  5. Department of Neonatology, Charité Campus Mitte, Berlin, Germany

    F Guthmann & R Wauer

  6. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Charité Campus Mitte, Berlin, Germany

    H Halle & G Gossing

  7. Department of Nephrology, Charité Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany

    T Pfab

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  1. B Hocher
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Correspondence to B Hocher.

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Hocher, B., Chen, YP., Hügle, S. et al. Impact of maternal endothelial nitric oxide synthase gene polymorphisms on blood pressure, protein excretion and fetal outcome in pregnancy. J Hum Hypertens 22, 641–647 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/jhh.2008.34

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/jhh.2008.34

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