Association of hypertension with single nucleotide polymorphisms in the quantitative trait locus for abdominal obesity-metabolic syndrome on chromosome 17 Short title: SNP at 17p12 and blood pressure

Background: Genome scan in Chinese revealed an association of blood pressure with the microsatellite marker D17S1303, which lies in a quantitative trait locus for the abdominal obesity-metabolic syndrome (AOMS2) at 17p12 on chromosome 17. We previously reported that D17S1303 was associated with hypertension and obesity. Therefore, we studied 10 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) within 3kb of D17S1303. Methods: 180 hypertensive subjects (91 men, 89 women, age 53+12) and 180 normotensive matched controls (91 men, 89 women, age 52+11) were genotyped using the Sequenom genotyping platform. Results: Allelic frequencies in these Chinese subjects differed from those reported for Caucasians. Three SNPs (rs11656507, rs1357926, rs852319) were homozygous in our subjects. The genotype frequencies of rs852320, rs852321 and rs852322 did not differ between hypertensive and normotensive subjects. However, there were significant differences for rs1525402 (p=0.048), rs2692343 (p=0.022), rs2692344 (p=0.017) and rs2321313 (p=0.028). A 4-locus haplotype comprising G at rs1525402, C at rs2692343, C at rs2692344 and G at rs2321313 was associated with lower systolic blood pressure (p=0.023) and normotension (p=0.048). Conclusion: Our results provide further evidence that there is a gene, as yet unidentified, influencing blood pressure in the vicinity of D17S1303 in a quantitative trait locus for