APLN and hypertensive disorder: Recently, we have identified 12 common polymorphisms in apelin/APJ pathway by direct sequencing, and investigated for the first time the association of these polymorphisms with hypertension and its related phenotypes in a family-based association study [10], and we further validated the top four polymorphisms (rs3761581, rs56204867 (T-1860C), rs7119375, and rs10501367) in a large population-based case-control study [11].