An association study in essential hypertension using functional polymorphisms in lymphotoxin-α gene

Background Lymphotoxin-α (LTA), a member of the tumor necrosis factor family, is a cytokine produced by lymphocytes. The substance LTA mediates a wide variety of inflammatory, immunostimulatory, and antiviral responses. In 2002, LTA was identified as a major risk factor for myocardial infarction (MI) in Japanese individuals, in a large-scale case-control study using 92,788 gene-based single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers in the whole human genome. Essential hypertension (EH) is thought to be a multifactorial disorder involved in endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis. Although hypertension is one of the greatest risk factors for MI, there have been no reports estimating the association between EH and LTA. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the association between EH and the LTA gene. Methods In the present study, we assessed the association between EH and SNP and haplotypes of the LTA gene in a case-control study of 202 EH patients and 217 age-matched normotensive control subjects. Results The overall distribution of genotypes for each SNP did not significantly differ between the two groups. Furthermore, the haplotype analysis revealed no association between the EH and normotensive groups. Conclusions Polymorphisms of the LTA gene were not associated with EH. This finding suggests differences in genetic backgrounds between EH and MI.