Mutation of low affinity nerve growth factor receptor gene in spontaneously hypertensive and stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats: one of the promising candidate genes for hypertension.

There is evidence that abnormal formation of the sympathetic nervous system might be important for pathogenesis of hypertension. In the present study we analyzed nucleotide sequences of low affinity nerve growth factor receptor (LNGFR) genes in the spontaneously hypertensive rat and its stroke-prone substrain. There was a point mutation generating an amino acid substitution in signal peptide of these LNGFRs. This result suggested that the mutated LNGFR gene is one of the promising candidate genes for hypertension.