Genomics, proteomics and integrative "omics" in hypertension research

During the past few years, genomics, proteomics and other "omics" fields have been applied extensively to several areas of biomedical research. This review provides an overview and summarizes the current status of applications of these omics fields to essential and secondary hypertension. Some perspectives of these fields for future hypertension research are discussed.

Genome-wide scans applying to essential hypertension have demonstrated numerous chromosomal regions with significant and/or suggestive evidence of linkage. The consistency of these results among several different studies is, however, problematic; probably because of the variability in number of families, ethnicity, family types, phenotyping strategy, study design and statistical analyses in those studies. Findings from such studies will be more valuable when more-complete sets of data and their integration are available. Proteomics is in its early phase in hypertension research, but has shown some significant data on the pathophysiology of hypoxia-induced and renovascular hypertension. Recently, integrative omics and systems biology have been emerging and seem to be the ideal approach for future hypertension research.

Genomics, proteomics and integrative omics have demonstrated their potential in hypertension research to better understand the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of hypertension. In addition, they may contribute to identification of new therapeutic targets, biomarker discovery, prediction of therapeutic response, personalized treatment regimens, better therapeutic outcome and ultimately prevention of the disease.