ABSENCE OF GENETIC-LINKAGE BETWEEN POLYMORPHISMS OF THE INSULIN-RECEPTOR GENE AND ESSENTIAL-HYPERTENSION

This study evaluated whether hypertensive siblings had excess sharing of Rsal and Sstl alleles of the insulin receptor gene compared with a random population. Thirty families consisting of 60 affected individua ls with established hypertension were genotyped for the Rsal and Sstl restriction fragment length polymorphisms and the resulting genotype d ata was analysed using the affected pedigree member method of linkage analysis. The hypertensive siblings were found to have increased shari ng of INSR alleles; however, this linkage could not be confirmed using a maximum LOD score method. Thus, the results from this study do not support a role for the INSR gene in the genesis of essential hypertens ion in the population studied.