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Introduction: Essential hypertension (HTN) is a multifactorial disease involving environmental, genetic and other factors. Over the past years, genetic studies of essential HTN have increased dramatically but the molecular mechanisms involved are still unknown. As part of a research program held by Boston university (USA), we studied the role of various genes and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the inheritance or the onset of HTN in African-American, Caucasian-American and Greek families.Subjects and methods: Among 128 Greek families with a history of HTN, we studied 1474 people. Of the total examined, 273 men and 286 women were hypertensive. Based on 410 DNA samples from the hypertensive subjects, different SNPs were examined. Overall analysis of the results coming from the Greek families, as well as comparison to the 2 other groups (African-Americans and Caucasian-Americans), was performed.Results: We report SNPs that are associated with the inheritance of HTN and are located either at the promoters of N-methyltransferase and catalase genes, or within the coding region of NEDD4L ubiquitin ligase gene, or SNPs in mitochondrial DNA of hypertensive probands. Furthermore, we clarified the role of hereditary predisposition to the development of HTN, showing that the presence of maternal HTN was significantly higher in African-Americans and Greeks compared to Americans (81.7%, 84.8%, and 65%) while the paternal HTN was significantly less (50%, 48.3% and 44.9%), respectively.Conclusions: Although genetic factors that were correlated with hypertension were identified, it was not possible to name a single gene that should be targeted for the treatment of hypertension. Nevertheless, the important role of maternal hereditary predisposition of hypertension in the Greek patients and the responsible genetic factors involved, should be further examined. |
