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Article: Gene For Teen-Age High Blood Pressure Mutant Steroid Hormone Causes Pregnancy-Induced Hypertension; Pathway Hints At Clinical Payoffs.
- Article from:
- BIOWORLD Today
- Article date:
- July 11, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 A Thomson Healthcare Company. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Pregnancy can be hazardous to a woman's health, and life - if she carries a recently identified gene mutation. It encodes a flawed form of the receptor for a steroid hormone called mineralocorticoid.
"So when women who carry this mutation become pregnant," observed molecular geneticist Richard Lifton, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Yale University, "they develop severe hypertension, because a normal hormone of pregnancy, progesterone, now has an abnormal action. It normally acts as an antagonist of the mineralocorticoid receptor [MR], which promotes salt and water reabsorption in the kidney. But as a consequence of this mutation," he continued, "it now ...