Background: The present study was to investigate the role of bradykinin receptors genes polymorphisms on hypertension risk in Northern Han Chinese population. We also carried out a meta-analysis on Chinese to derive a more full assessment of this association.
Methods and results: A total of 976 subjects from Northern Han Chinese and 7 studies with 1599 cases and 1425 controls were included in this case-control study and in the current meta-analysis, respectively. For the case-control study, we identified the genotypes of -58T/C and 1098A/G polymorphism in BDKRB2 and BDKRB1 genes, respectively, by TaqMan PCR method. Overall, we found significant association between the -58T/C polymorphism and the increased risk of hypertension in the allele comparison (p = 0.01, OR = 1.386, 95% CI [1.138-1.688]). Subgroup analysis by gender suggested that this obvious association could still be found in males, but not in females. For the 1098A/G polymorphism, no significant association was revealed in overall and subgroup analysis. For the meta-analysis involving the -58T/C polymorphism, a significant association between this polymorphism and hypertension was observed in the whole group. In Chinese Han subgroup, we found significant association with hypertension in allele comparison(C vs. T: p = 0.03, OR = 1.28, 95% CI 1.03-1.59, pheterogeneity = 0.05).
Conclusions: Our case-control study indicated that -58T/C might be significantly associated with the increased risk of hypertension in Northern Han Chinese population, which was partially confirmed by our meta-analysis.
Keywords: Bradykinin receptors; Han Chinese; hypertension; meta-analysis, polymorphism.