Genetic comorbidity of hypertension and bronchial asthma

Objective. To assess the association of single nucleotide polymorphisms of genes potentially involved in the comorbidity of bronchial asthma (BA) and essential hypertension (HTN) in patients with different time onset of the diseases.

Design and methods. Genotyping of 92 SNPs was performed using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry in patients with BA and HTN (n = 97) and healthy individuals (n = 153). The group of patients with comorbid pathology was divided into two subgroups depending on the time of onset of symptoms of BA relative to HTN, and the prevalence of all studied SNPs was compared in each subgroup relative to the control.

Results. The variant rs11590807 regulating expression for UTP25, TRAF3IP3, C1orf74, HSD11B1-AS 1, IRF6 genes in the heart, blood vessels, and lung is associated with BA and HTN, regardless of the time onset of each of these diseases. Associations of other variants are specific with respect for each subgroup of comorbid diseases. The rs1010461 variant, which regulates the expression of RNASE4 and ANG genes, is linked with HTN as the first phenotype of the comorbidity. The rs769214, rs11032700, rs11032699, rs484214, and rs480575 variants, which regulate the expression of CAT gene, are associated with BA as the first phenotype of disease comorbidity.

Conclusions. We found specific associations of the studied polymorphic variants in the development of comorbid phenotypes of BA and HTN, which differ in the time of manifestation of each of the diseases relative to each other.

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