Searching for genes involved in hypertension development in special populations: children and pre-eclamptic women. Where are we standing now?

Primary hypertension is a very common disorder particularly in the aging population but hypertensive disorders can appear earlier in life, especially when obesity and unhealthy lifestyle are present. Also pregnant women can be at risk of developing gestational hypertension and/or pre-eclampsia, which causes complications in nearly 7% of pregnancies. These "special" populations could be regarded as natural models suited to reveal mechanisms of hypertension development which are either common to other forms of hypertension, including primary hypertension or specific to these populations. Recent studies in the field of genetics of primary hypertension have used new powerful tools, such as genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and sequencing, but studies about hypertension during childhood and in pregnancy have seldom used high-throughput technologies and the knowledge in this field comes mostly from the candidate gene approach. In this review we summarize some interesting results from genetic studies conducted in childhood and adolescence and during pregnancy and underline the need to apply modern technologies in these potentially very fruitful populations.