VARIATION AT THE M235T LOCUS OF THE ANGIOTENSINOGEN GENE AND ESSENTIAL-HYPERTENSION - A POPULATION-BASED CASE-CONTROL STUDY FROM ROCHESTER,MINNESOTA

A variant of the angiotensinogen gene, M235T, has been associated with essential hypertension in selected subjects from Paris, France and Sa lt Lake City, Utah. In the present report, we studied a population-bas ed sample consisting of 104 subjects diagnosed with hypertension befor e age 60 and 195 matched normotensive individuals from Rochester, Minn esota. We determined whether there was a relationship between the M235 T polymorphism of the angiotensinogen gene and the occurrence of essen tial hypertension using two methods. First, a contingency chi-square a nalysis was carried out to test for an association between the M235T p olymorphism and hypertension status. Second, multivariable conditional logistic regression was used to determine whether variation at the M2 35T polymorphism was a significant predictor of the probability of hav ing essential hypertension. We detected no statistically significant a ssociation between the M235T polymorphism and the occurrence of essent ial hypertension. In particular, the association was not significant i n either gender or in a subset of severely hypertensive subjects requi ring two or more anti-hypertensive medications. Furthermore, variation in the number of M235T alleles did not make a significant contributio n to predicting the probability of having essential hypertension, eith er alone or in conjunction with other predictor variables. These resul ts suggest that the contribution of variation in the angiotensinogen g ene to the occurrence of essential hypertension is less than initially suspected, or may not be constant across populations.