Author:

Keywords:

Adult, Aged, Alleles, Base Sequence, Female, Genotype, Histocompatibility Antigens Class II, Humans, Hypertension, Male, Middle Aged, Molecular Probes, Molecular Sequence Data, Polymorphism, Genetic, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Peripheral Vascular Disease, Cardiovascular System & Cardiology, HLA CLASS II POLYMORPHISM, ESSENTIAL HYPERTENSION, 1103 Clinical Sciences, Cardiovascular System & Hematology, 3201 Cardiovascular medicine and haematology, 3202 Clinical sciences

Abstract:

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the HLA class II polymorphisms contributes to the susceptibility to essential hypertension in the Belgian population. For this purpose we studied 120 hypertensive patients and 168 normotensive controls by means of a PCR-SSO assay. No significant difference in allele and genotype frequencies of the DRB and DPB1 loci could be found between the two groups. We concluded that essential hypertension as a multifactorial and heterogeneous disease cannot be associated with one of the HLA class II DRB and DPB1 alleles in Belgian patients.