Association study between some renin-angiotensin system gene variants and essential hypertension in a sample of Algerian population: case control study.

Essential hypertension is an important risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease. We aim in this study to analyse the relationship between AGT M235T gene variant and ACE I/D gene variant with essential hypertension in a sample of the Algerian population of the Oran city. A case-control study has been performed in 145 subjects including; 75 hypertensives and 70 controls from Algerian population of Oran city. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) combined with restrictive fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) was used to detect the M235T variant of angiotensinogen (AGT) gene and a nested PCR to determine ACE I/D gene variant. The genotypic and allelic distribution of the M235Tvariant of the AGT gene did not differ in hypertensives and normotensives group (X-2 = 7.81, P<0.05; X-2 = 4.67, respectively) thus there was no association between the T allele and hypertension (OR=1.64; 95% CI [1.01-2.69]). The genotypic and allelic frequencies of the ACE I/D variant did differ significantly between hypertensives and controls (X-2=13.98, P<0.05; X-2 = 12.66, P<0.05, respectively) where a significant association between the D allele of the ACE I/D gene and essential hypertension has been observed (OR=0.46; 95% CI [0.27-0.75]). We reported a high prevalence of the D and T allele in hypertensives female. This study shows that the M235T variant of the AGT gene is not associated with essential hypertension while a significant association has been reported with the D allele in this sample of Algerian population of the Oran city.