| Summary: | Despite its significant genetic component, the study of hypertension by genome-wide
association presents more challenges than other common complex diseases. Its high
prevalence, heterogeneity, and somewhat unclear definition are the challenges that need
to be overcome on one hand. On the other hand, there are issues of small effect sizes and
pleiotropism that are not specific to hypertension alone but nonetheless magnify the
problems of genetic dissection when coupled with phenotypic misclassification. We
discuss issues of study design and summarise published genome-wide association studies
(GWASs) of hypertension and blood pressure. With careful study design and analysis
success is possible, as demonstrated by the recent large-scale studies. Following these, there
is still further scope to advance the field through high fidelity phenotyping and deep
sequencing.
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