
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, November 4, 1994                   TAG: 9411040098
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW HAVEN, CONN.                                 LENGTH: Medium

GENE MUTATION CAUSES FORM OF HYPERTENSION

Researchers have identified an abnormal gene that causes a rare, severe form of high blood pressure, a discovery that could lead to new treatments for more common forms.

The researchers found a mutant gene in sufferers of Liddle's syndrome, which can cause early death. An estimated 2,000 people in the United States have the syndrome.

Scientists know very little about genetic causes of high blood pressure. The study led by Yale University scientists and published in today's issue of the journal Cell raises the possibility that other mutations of the same gene contribute to more common forms of high blood pressure.

``Genetic causes will tell you which mechanism causes the hypertension. Then you can identify the people and have rational therapy,'' said Dr. Victor J. Dzau, director of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University.

Dr. Theodore Kurtz, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco who specializes in the genetics of hypertension, said the study is an important step in finding the genetic causes of high blood pressure.

``Even though Liddle's syndrome is a rare form of hypertension, this discovery is still very exciting because it might well give us insight to the mechanisms of more common forms of high blood pressure,'' Kurtz said. ``It has potential implications for our better understanding.''

Liddle's syndrome causes a person's kidneys to constantly flush salt and water into the bloodstream, often leading to death from heart disease, brain hemorrhage or a ruptured aorta in teen-agers and people in their 20s.

People with Liddle's syndrome can lead relatively normal lives using the drug amiloride, said the study's lead author, Dr. Richard P. Lifton, associate professor of medicine at Yale.

Liddle's syndrome was recognized in 1963 in several children in the same Alabama family. By 1991, the family had 18 members with Liddle's syndrome.

Scientists thought that the syndrome was caused by a gene mutation after Drs. Cecilia Canessa and Bernard Rossier of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland this spring cloned genes that regulate sodium absorption in rodents' kidneys.

by CNB