Epistatic effects between two genes in the renin-angiotensin system and systolic blood pressure and coronary artery calcification

Sharon L.R. Kardia, Lawrence F. Bielak, Leslie A. Lange, James M. Cheverud, Eric Boerwinkle, Stephen T. Turner, Patrick F. Sheedy, Patricia A. Peyser

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: Coronary artery calcification (CAC) is an important indicator of future coronary artery disease events. Since elevated blood pressure (BP) is an important predictor of CAC, genetic polymorphisms in the renin-angiotensin system and their interaction may play a role in explaining CAC quantity variation. Material/Methods: As part of the Epidemiology of Coronary Artery Calcification Study, 166 asymptomatic women and 166 asymptomatic men were genotyped for the insertion/deletion polymorphism in the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene and the -6 promoter polymorphism of the angiotensinogen (AGT) gene. We used a novel method to detect gene-gene interaction and compared it to the standard two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) method. Results: Based on a two-way ANOVA model, there was no evidence for epistasis for either systolic BP or CAC in either men or women. However, using a novel method, we found evidence of significant gene-gene interaction in systolic BP in men and gene-gene interaction in both systolic BP levels and CAC quantity in women. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates that new methods of assessing epistasis maybe important in understanding the complex genetics of systolic blood pressure as well as subclinical coronary atherosclerosis.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)CR150-CR158
JournalMedical Science Monitor
Volume12
Issue number4
StatePublished - Apr 1 2006

Keywords

  • Blood pressure
  • Coronary artery calcification
  • Epistasis
  • Gene-gene interactions
  • Statistical

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Medicine

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