Enlighten the association of Angiotensinogen gene (AGT) polymorphisms and hypertension in Jammu region of north Indian population: A case-control study

Background: Hypertension is a common cause associated with various life-threatening disorders such as stroke, heart attack, etc. AGT, with its two common polymorphisms, i.e., rs699 and rs4762, has been associated with variation in plasma angiotensinogen concentration and linked to essential hypertension.Aim: In the present study, we aimed to find the association between the two polymorphisms, namely rs699 and rs4762 of the AGT gene, with the risk of hypertension in people of the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir.Method: To achieve the aim, an observational with case-control study design was utilized where the descriptive and inferential data were presented in frequency, and an Odds ratio with a 95% Confidence Interval was used for determining the risk association, respectively. Online free statistical tools were used for the statistical analysis. The pairwise linkage disequilibrium (LD) and its respective measures (D ' & r(Mills et al., 2020 (Mills et al., 2020))) for the SNPs among the hypertensive patients and controls were calculated using Haploview software.Result: A total of 180 cases and 350 controls were enrolled, where "rs699" showed an increased risk (OR: 1.72 [1.28-2.31],p-value =0.0003) for hypertension in contrast to "rs4762" which showed a protective role (OR: 0.55 [0.37-0.82], p-value <0.002) in the population of Jammu. After linkage disequilibrium analysis, the risk of disease due to haplotype was also analyzed, and it was found that C-C (rs699/ rs4762) significantly (p-value <0.00001) increases the risk by 1.9-fold.Conclusion: The present study concluded that "rs699" showed an increased risk for hypertension in the population of the Jammu region in contrast to "rs4762".