Discovery of blood pressure genes could help prevent cardiovascular disease
12 September 2011
A study published in 'Nature' and co-led by scientists from Barts and The London Medical School (Queen Mary, University of London) has discovered 16 new gene regions that influence blood pressure. The international collaborative study involved 351 scientists from 234 institutions based in 24 countries around the world.
The researchers analysed data on more than 270 000 people to find genetic variations in the DNA of each person that were associated with higher or lower blood pressure. This enabled them to identify 16 new gene regions influencing blood pressure and provided confirmation of 12 other gene regions that had previously been discovered by the Barts and The London team.
The researchers then combined the effects of genetic variation in all 28 gene regions and showed that these have an impact on the risk of developing hypertension, stroke, coronary heart disease and structural changes in the heart. Importantly, they showed that genetic effects on blood pressure are broadly similar in people of European, East Asian, South Asian and African ancestries.
Blood pressure is influenced by a combination of lifestyle factors and genes, which have proved challenging to identify. Even small changes in blood pressure can increase risk of stroke and heart attack, and more than one billion people worldwide have high blood pressure, also known as hypertension.
Professor Mark Caulfield from Barts and The London, who is also President of the British Hypertension Society, said: "High blood pressure affects a quarter of the adult population in the UK. These new gene regions we report today offer a major leap forward in our understanding of the inherited influences on blood pressure and offer new potential avenues for treatment, which is particularly welcome for those who do not achieve optimal blood pressure control."
A related study published in 'Nature Genetics', and co-led by Louise Wain and Martin Tobin from the University of Leicester and Paul Elliott from Imperial College, reports the identification of gene regions for two further types of blood pressure measurement: pulse pressure (a marker of the stiffness of the arteries that carry blood from the heart around the body) and mean arterial pressure.
Both measurements can predict hypertension and cardiovascular disease. The research uncovered four new gene regions for pulse pressure and two for mean arterial pressure, indicating novel genetic mechanisms underlying blood pressure variation.
The 'Nature' and 'Nature Genetics' studies were funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council, the British Heart Foundation and the National Institute for Health Research.
Image: A doctor measuring the blood pressure of a middle-aged man using an analogue sphygmomanometer. Credit: Kate Whitley, Wellcome Images.
References
The International Consortium for Blood Pressure Genome-Wide Association Studies. Genetic variants in novel pathways influence blood pressure and cardiovascular disease risk. Nature 2011 (epub ahead of print).
Wain LV et al. Genome-wide association study identifies six new loci influencing pulse pressure and mean arterial pressure. Nat Genet 2011 (epub ahead of print).
