The investigation of ATP1A1 in human essential hypertension is supported by cumulative evidence obtained in the Dahl salt-sensitive hypertensive rat model, linking ATP1A1 to salt-sensitive hypertension [8–12], documenting a functionally significant variant [8] confirmed by ligase chain reaction-assays [13], protein Edman degradation sequencing and amplification-independent allele-specific PCR-assays [11,13]. The gene discussed is ATP1A1; the disease is hypertensive disorder.