Relationship between an Angiotensinogen Gene Polymorphism (M235T) and Serum Lipids: A Cross-Sectional Study among Japanese Workers

Angiotensinogen (AGT) is a component of the renin-angiotensin system, which plays a central role in blood pressure regulation. Although it is controversial, the association between AGT gene polymorphisms and hypertension, and coronary heart disease is suspected. In a case-control study on the metabolic syndrome, an association between AGT M235T polymorphism and serum total cholesterol (TC) level was demonstrated by Thomas et al. (2001). To reconfirm this relationship, a cross-sectional study among Jap-anese workers with 876 dyslipidemia and 1,158 non-dyslipidemia subjects was carried out. To evaluate the AGT M235T polymorphism, a PCR-mutant allele specific amplifi-cation (MASA) method was employed. No significant difference in the distribution of ge-netic variance was observed between the two groups. Although it was not significant, the T allele correlating to the lower TC of the present study occurred in a reversed manner to the previous report. In our results, no significant association between AGT M235T and TC was observed. Key words: angiotensinogen; polymorphism (genetics); cholesterol; cross-sectional study; Japanese workers Essential hypertension, a major part of hyperten-sion, is a multifactorial disease and some candi-date genes have been proposed. The renin-angio-tensin system (RAS) has a central role in regu-lating blood pressure and sodium homeostasis. Angiotensinogen (AGT) plays a role in RAS as a substrate of renin and a precursor of angioten-sin II. For that reason, it was considered that the AGT gene polymorphism influenced blood pres-sure, and the relationship between some polymor-phisms and hypertension have been investigate