SAPPHIRe III in Taiwan-Progression Evaluation and Cardiovascular Outcomes of Hypertensive Families

Blood pressure is a quantitative trait affected by both genetic and environmental factors. Stanford-Asian Pacific Program in Hypertension and Insulin Resistance (SAPPHIRe) is an international genetic study, which intends to map the major genetic loci underlying hypertension in sibpairs of Asian-Pacific Chinese and Japanese origin. Success in genetic studies may depend on many factors including the selection of the patient population, the identification of intermediate phenotypes, the disease subsets, and the genetic strategy and methodologies employed. In order to reduce heterogeneity of the genetic and environmental background, we will focus our investigation on the Chinese population. Furthermore, besides the variables associated with insulin resistance, which were collected and studied in year 1 through 5 of SAPPHIRe, some more variables from echocardiographic examination and multi-detector row computed tomography (MDCT) will be collected and studied. Hypertension is a major risk factor for stroke, myocardial infraction and renal disease. Hypertension often occurs in combination with other metabolic complications such as hyperlipidemia, obesity and insulin resistance. The combined disorder is often called the metabolic syndrome. Our general approach is to continue analyzing candidate genes as well as perform a complete genome search based on the exiting genome-wide scan data together with old and new phenotype variables. Our objective is to identify susceptible gene for hypertension through incorporating intermediate phenotypes and to find gene markers for developing useful screening tools for the high risk group in order to prevent or early detect cardiovascular disorder patients.