European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Background: Leptin, an adipokine known for its anti obesity action also has a direct effect in maintaining blood pressure of an individual. Many studies have proposed the significant relation of high plasma leptin levels with high blood pressure. A significant association was found between a tetranucleotide repeat polymorphism (TTTC)n in the 3’UTR of leptin gene with essential hypertension in several populations. So we wanted to conduct a study to know the relationship of (TTTC)n repeat polymorphism in 3’UTR of Leptin gene with Essential hypertension in our population and its relation to serum leptin levels. Methods: A case-control study was done in our tertiary care hospital for one and a half years. Polymerase chain reaction was carried out and the products were visualized after running in 2% agarosegel electrophoresis. The alleles of this tetranucleotide polymorphism were classified as shorter form- class I and longer form class-II. Serum leptin levels were measured by ELISA. Result: It was found that Class I allele was more frequent in hypertensives when compared to controls(p<0.001). Class I/I genotype had significant association with essential hypertension even after adjusting for BMI(p<0.000). The difference in serum leptin levels between hypertensives and apparently healthy controls in our study was statistically significant even after adjusting for influence of obesity (p=0.015). This difference was in line with many other studies. However we could not find a significant association of serum leptin levels with this tetranucleotide repeat polymorphism. Conclusion: We found a significant association of (TTTC)n repeat polymorphism in 3’UTR of Leptin gene with Essential hypertension in this study.