Genetics of high blood pressure in the lungs

Hypertension means high blood pressure. It is when pressure in your arteries stays higher than it should. Arteries carry blood to your body. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a type of high blood pressure. It affects the arteries in your lungs. And the right side of your heart. The right side of your heart pumps blood to the lungs. The blood picks up oxygen in the lungs. The oxygen-rich blood goes back to the left side of your heart. Then the left side pumps this blood to the rest of your body. In PAH, the pressure builds-up in the lung arteries. This causes the right side of your heart to work harder. The right side must push against the high pressure. Over time, this makes the heart muscles weak. Lung diseases can cause PAH. So can heart diseases. AIDS. And scleroderma. In scleroderma, your immune system starts to attack connective tissue. Like cartilage. Or bones. Or blood vessels. Your body fights back by making extra collagen. Collagen is a protein in connective tissues. But too much can cause our blood vessels to get stiff. It can also make them narrow. Both these make it harder for the heart to push blood to the body. We do not always know what causes PAH. Scientists think that gene changes may give us clues. Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center want to study PAH. They will work with another group from the University of Arizona. They have genetic data from people with PAH. Some of these patients have PAH linked to scleroderma. Some of them also respond well to drugs that help control PAH. They want to check what they found. They will use BioVU for this. They will look for people with scleroderma that do and do not have PAH. They will check for a link between gene changes and PAH. And between gene changes and scleroderma. They will also check for gene changes linked to drug response. The goal is to find gene changes that may cause PAH. Their results may help us learn more about PAH. And who may be at risk for getting PAH. It may also help us learn what medication will work best for each patient.