%0 Journal Article
%T High frequency of the D allele of the angiotensin-converting enzyme gene in Arabic populations
%A Abdel Salem
%A Mark A Batzer
%J BMC Research Notes
%D 2009
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1756-0500-2-99
%X The polymorphisms of ACE gene were investigated using polymerase chain reaction for detection of an I/D mutation. The results showed a high frequency of the ACE D allele among the three Arab populations, Egyptians (0.67), Jordanians (0.66) and Syrians (0.60), which is similar to those obtained from previous studies for Arab populations.The relationship between ACE alleles and disease in these three Arab populations is still not known, but the present results clearly suggest that geographic origin should be carefully considered in the increasing number of studies on the association between ACE alleles and disease etiology. This study adds to the data showing the wide variation in the distribution of the ACE alleles in different populations and highlights that great care needs to be taken when interpreting clinical data on the association of the ACE alleles with different diseases.Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), a key enzyme of the rennin-angiotensin system, is localized in the kidney [1]. The ACE catalyzes the conversion of angiotensin I to the biologically active peptide, angiotensin II, which is involved in the control of fluid-electrolyte balance and systemic blood pressure [2]. The ACE gene is mapped to chromosome 17q23 and it has been widely investigated. The insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism of ACE was discovered by Rigat et al. [3] and it is characterized by the presence (insertion) or absence (deletion) of a 287 bp AluYa5 element inside intron 16 producing three genotypes (II homozygote, ID heterozygote and DD homozygote) [3]. Although the I/D polymorphism is located in a non-coding region (i.e. intron) of the ACE gene, several investigators have found that the D allele is related to increased activity of ACE in serum [3,4]. The highest serum ACE activity was seen in the DD genotype while the lowest was seen in the II genotype [3]. Several investigations suggested the genetic predisposition of the ACE I/D polymorphism with several diseases including
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/2/99