No linkage of the lipoprotein lipase locus to hypertension in Caucasians

Objective A previous study has shown significant linkage of five markers ne ar the lipoprotein lipase locus to systolic blood pressure, but not to dias tolic blood pressure, in nondiabetic members of 48 Taiwanese families selec ted for noninsulin-dependent diabetes. However, lipoprotein lipase markers did not appear strongly linked to systolic blood pressure in a study of Mex ican-Americans using a variety of selection schemes. The objective of the c urrent study was to test whether markers near the lipoprotein lipase gene w ere linked to hypertension in Caucasians. Design To test for linkage of genetic markers in or near the lipoprotein li pase gene to hypertension in Caucasians, two sets of Caucasian hypertensive sibships were genotyped. The samples included 261 sibships (431 effective sibpairs) from four field centers of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Ins titute Family Heart Study and 211 sibships (282 effective sibpairs) from th e Health Family Tree database in Utah. Results Two highly polymorphic markers in or near the lipoprotein lipase ge ne showed no evidence of excess allele sharing in either set of hypertensiv e sibships. Combining the two datasets resulted in 653 and 713 effective si bpairs for the two markers, sharing 0.495 +/- 0.30 and 0.486 +/- 0.28 allel es identical by descent compared to an expected sharing of 0.50. Multipoint analysis of the two loci also did not show linkage (P = 0.95). Conclusions We conclude that the lipoprotein lipase locus and nearby region s do not appear to be linked to hypertension in Caucasians. J Hypertens 199 9, 17:39-43 (C) Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.