Background: Genome scans for hypertension have yielded inconsistent results. The non-replication of significant or suggestive linkage might be due to lack of power of individual studies. Here, we conducted a genome scan meta-analysis for hypertension in an attempt to increase statistical power and to enhance evidence of linkage.
Methods: A newly developed Genome Search Meta-analysis (GSMA) method was applied to pool the results obtained from six scans reported in five papers.
Results: Our analysis did not find any regions with genome-wide significant linkage to hypertension. We did identify several regions with suggestive linkage, including 2p, 5q, 6q, 8p, 9p, 9q, and 11q.
Conclusions: It seems that no region has a uniformly large impact on hypertension and that susceptibility genes for hypertension may be very difficult to detect.