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Objective To study the association of the apolipoprotein B gene polymorphisms with essential hypertension in Northern Chinese Han population. Methods XbaI and EcoRI polymorphisms of the apolipoprotein B (APOB) gene were genotyped by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and restnction fragment-length polymorphism (RFLP) method in 503 unrelated hypertensive patients and 490 healthy controls recruited from international collaborative study of cardiovascular disease in Asia (InterAsia). Results The difference in the genotypic distributions could be neglected across the groups. The prevalence of X+ allele in healthy controls (4.8%) was less frequent in Chinese, and there was no significant difference in the frequency of the X+ allele between cases (5.7%) and controls (P=0.38). The observed E- allele frequencies were closely similar among groups (5.9% in cases vs 5.0% in controls, P=0.39). Logitstic regression analyses revealed that the lack of association still persisted after adjustment of other environmental factors. Haplotype analysis showed that X-E+ was most frequent and no haplotype could significantly contribute to essential hypertension. Conclusion The APOB gene Xbal and EcoRl polymorphisms are not associated with essential hypertension in the Northem Chinese Han population. Future studies on single nucleotide polymorphisms in larger samples are needed to further investigate the possible contribution of the APOB gene to essential hypertension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]