Selective genotyping reveals association between the epithelial sodium channel gamma-subunit and systolic blood pressure.

Systolic blood pressure is determined in large part by genes. Six independent studies have reported evidence of linkage between systolic pressure and chromosome 16p12 that incorporates SCNN1G, the gene encoding the gamma-subunit of the epithelial sodium channel. We undertook the first comprehensive association analysis of SCNN1G and systolic pressure. To achieve genetic contrast, we sampled unrelated subjects within the upper (mean: 166 mm Hg; n=96) and lower (mean: 98 mm Hg; n=94) 10% of the systolic pressure distribution of 2911 subjects from the Victorian Family Heart Study. We examined genotypes and haplotypes related to 26 single nucleotide polymorphisms across SCNN1G and its promoter. Each of 3 single nucleotide polymorphisms (rs13331086, rs11074553, and rs4299163) in introns 5 and 6 showed evidence of association with systolic pressure in logistic regression analyses adjusted for age, sex, and body mass index. Considered as a haplotype block, these single nucleotide polymorphisms were significantly associated with systolic pressure (haplo.score global: P=0.0001). In permutation analyses to account for multiple testing, a result such as this was observed only once in 10,000 permutations. The estimated frequency of 1 haplotype (TGC) was substantially greater in high (13.3%) than low (0.6%) systolic pressure subjects (P=0.0001). Three other haplotypes (TGG, TAC, and GGC) showed associations with high or low systolic pressure consistent with the observed associations of their composite alleles. These findings identify relatively common polymorphisms in the SCNN1G gene that are associated with high systolic blood pressure in the general Australian white population.