[Genetic factors of hypertension]

Essential hypertension (EH) is thought to be a multifactorial disease. In Japan, there are more than 20 million cases of EH, which accounts for 80 to 90% of hypertension cases in Japan. It is very difficult to isolate the susceptibility genes of EH in familial linkage analysis such as sib-pair analysis and association studies such as case-control studies of candidate genes. Over the past few years, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have begun to identify the primary genetic mechanisms of hypertension. For example, GWAS have identified many loci in or near genes that generally were not expected to be associated with the level of blood pressure or essential hypertension. Considering the high expectations for the studies and the billions of dollars spent to conduct these studies, however, progress has been slow. We believe that next-generation research technologies, such as the whole genome sequencing, may remedy some of these problems encountered thus far. The present paper contains a review of issues and progress in isolation of susceptibility genes of EH, and an introduction to an effective novel method for isolation of susceptibility genes of EH.