Blood Pressure Genetics and Hypertension: Genome-Wide Analysis and Role of Ancestry

Abstract

Genome-wide association studies have been successful in identifying an increasing number of loci as associated with blood pressure and hypertension. However, most studies undertaken to date have only included individuals of European-ancestry for discovery of loci. Although there are differences in the prevalence and incidence of cardiovascular diseases between ancestries, it is expected that a common set of genomic loci will have an underlying involvement in blood pressure across ancestries with differences in genetic effect sizes due to ancestry-related differences in linkage disequilibrium (with the true causal variant) and environmental interactions. The differences in genetic variation between ancestries, for example, linkage disequilibrium structure and allele frequencies, can be exploited to identify additional loci associated with blood pressure traits and also to fine-map signals. This review will summarise the findings to date and discuss approaches for testing association with blood pressure across different ancestries.