Abstract-The metabolic syndrome is a common precursor of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes that is characterized by the clustering of insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, and increased blood pressure. In humans, mutations in the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-␥ (PPAR␥) have been reported to cause the full-blown metabolic syndrome, and drugs that activate PPAR␥ have proven to be effective agents for the prevention and treatment of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Here we report that telmisartan, a structurally unique angiotensin II receptor antagonist used for the treatment of hypertension, can function as a partial agonist of PPAR␥; influence the expression of PPAR␥ target genes involved in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism; and reduce glucose, insulin, and triglyceride levels in rats fed a high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. None of the other commercially available angiotensin II receptor antagonists appeared to activate PPAR␥ when tested at concentrations typically achieved in plasma with conventional oral dosing. In contrast to ordinary antihypertensive and antidiabetic agents, molecules that can simultaneously block the angiotensin II receptor and activate PPAR␥ have the potential to treat both hemodynamic and biochemical features of the metabolic syndrome and could provide unique opportunities for the prevention and treatment of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in high-risk populations. Key Words: receptors, angiotensin II Ⅲ angiotensin II Ⅲ renin-angiotensin system Ⅲ insulin resistance Ⅲ losartan A ll currently available classes of antihypertensive drugs were developed before it was widely recognized that increased blood pressure is closely associated with insulin resistance and dyslipidemia and well before public health authorities established diagnostic criteria for the metabolic syndrome. 1-3 Thus, the antihypertensive drugs in use today were designed primarily to affect cellular and biochemical mechanisms contributing to increased blood pressure and not to address the disordered carbohydrate and lipid metabolism that often accompany hypertension as part of the metabolic syndrome. Given the major impact of the metabolic syndrome on cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality, 4 -6 the availability of antihypertensive agents that also improve insulin resistance and dyslipidemia could be of considerable clinical value.Numerous studies have demonstrated that the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-␥ (PPAR␥) plays an important role in regulating carbohydrate and lipid metabolism and that ligands for PPAR␥ can improve insulin sensitivity, reduce triglyceride levels, and decrease the risk for atherosclerosis. 7-15 PPAR␥ ligands also have modest antihypertensive effects related at least in part to their ability to promote peripheral vasodilation. 16 -19 Several thiazolidinedione ligands for PPAR␥ have been approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes; however, these agents have limited capacity to reduce blood pressure and can provoke fluid retention, weight gain, edema, a...

The human insulin-resistance syndromes, type 2 diabetes, obesity, combined hyperlipidaemia and essential hypertension, are complex disorders whose genetic basis is unknown. The spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) is insulin resistant and a model of these human syndromes. Quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for SHR defects in glucose and fatty acid metabolism, hypertriglyceridaemia and hypertension map to a single locus on rat chromosome 4. Here we combine use of cDNA microarrays, congenic mapping and radiation hybrid (RH) mapping to identify a defective SHR gene, Cd36 (also known as Fat, as it encodes fatty acid translocase), at the peak of linkage to these QTLs. SHR Cd36 cDNA contains multiple sequence variants, caused by unequal genomic recombination of a duplicated ancestral gene. The encoded protein product is undetectable in SHR adipocyte plasma membrane. Transgenic mice overexpressing Cd36 have reduced blood lipids. We conclude that Cd36 deficiency underlies insulin resistance, defective fatty acid metabolism and hypertriglyceridaemia in SHR and may be important in the pathogenesis of human insulin-resistance syndromes.

Integration of genome-wide expression profiling with linkage analysis is a new approach to identifying genes underlying complex traits. We applied this approach to the regulation of gene expression in the BXH/HXB panel of rat recombinant inbred strains, one of the largest available rodent recombinant inbred panels and a leading resource for genetic analysis of the highly prevalent metabolic syndrome. In two tissues important to the pathogenesis of the metabolic syndrome, we mapped cis- and trans-regulatory control elements for expression of thousands of genes across the genome. Many of the most highly linked expression quantitative trait loci are regulated in cis, are inherited essentially as monogenic traits and are good candidate genes for previously mapped physiological quantitative trait loci in the rat. By comparative mapping we generated a data set of 73 candidate genes for hypertension that merit testing in human populations. Mining of this publicly available data set is expected to lead to new insights into the genes and regulatory pathways underlying the extensive range of metabolic and cardiovascular disease phenotypes that segregate in these recombinant inbred strains.

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Combined analyses of gene networks and DNA sequence variation can provide new insights into the aetiology of common diseases. Here, we used integrated genome-wide approaches across seven rat tissues to identify gene networks and the loci underlying their regulation. We defined an interferon regulatory factor 7 (IRF7)1-driven inflammatory network (iDIN) enriched for viral response genes, which represents a molecular biomarker for macrophages and was regulated in multiple tissues by a locus on rat chromosome 15q25. At this locus, Epstein-Barr virus induced gene 2 (Ebi2 or Gpr183), which we localised to macrophages and is known to control B lymphocyte migration2,3, regulated the iDIN. The human chromosome 13q32 locus, orthologous to rat 15q25, controlled the human equivalent of iDIN, which was conserved in monocytes. For the macrophage-associated autoimmune disease type 1 diabetes (T1D) iDIN genes were more likely to associate with T1D susceptibility than randomly selected immune response genes (P = 8.85 × 10−6). The human locus controlling the iDIN, was associated with the risk of T1D at SNP rs9585056 (P = 7.0 × 10−10, odds ratio = 1.15), which was one of five SNPs in this region associated with EBI2 expression. These data implicate IRF7 network genes and their regulatory locus in the pathogenesis of T1D.

We report the construction of the first complete genetic linkage map of the laboratory rat. By testing 1171 simple sequence length polymorphisms (SSLPs), we have identified 432 markers that show polymorphisms between the SHR and BN rat strains and mapped them in a single (SHR x BN) F2 intercross. The loci define 21 large linkage groups corresponding to the 21 rat chromosomes, together with a pair of nearby markers on chromosome 9 that are not linked to the rest of the map. Because 99.5% of the markers fall into one of the 21 large linkage groups, the maps appear to cover the vast majority of the rat genome. The availability of the map should facilitate whole genome scans for genes underlying qualitative and quantitative traits relevant to mammalian physiology and pathobiology.

The rat is an important system for modeling human disease. Four years ago, the rich 150-year history of rat research was transformed by the sequencing of the rat genome, ushering in an era of exceptional opportunity for identifying genes and pathways underlying disease phenotypes. Genome-wide association studies in human populations have recently provided a direct approach for finding robust genetic associations in common diseases, but identifying the precise genes and their mechanisms of action remains problematic. In the context of significant progress in rat genomic resources over the past decade, we outline achievements in rat gene discovery to date, show how these findings have been translated to human disease, and document an increasing pace of discovery of new disease genes, pathways and mechanisms. Finally, we present a set of principles that justify continuing and strengthening genetic studies in the rat model, and further development of genomic infrastructure for rat research.

Variation in gene expression is heritable and has been mapped to the genome in humans and model organisms as expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs). We applied integrated genome-wide expression profiling and linkage analysis to the regulation of gene expression in fat, kidney, adrenal, and heart tissues using the BXH/HXB panel of rat recombinant inbred strains. Here, we report the influence of heritability and allelic effect of the quantitative trait locus on detection of cis- and trans-acting eQTLs and discuss how these factors operate in a tissue-specific context. We identified several hundred major eQTLs in each tissue and found that cis-acting eQTLs are highly heritable and easier to detect than trans-eQTLs. The proportion of heritable expression traits was similar in all tissues; however, heritability alone was not a reliable predictor of whether an eQTL will be detected. We empirically show how the use of heritability as a filter reduces the ability to discover trans-eQTLs, particularly for eQTLs with small effects. Only 3% of cis- and trans-eQTLs exhibited large allelic effects, explaining more than 40% of the phenotypic variance, suggestive of a highly polygenic control of gene expression. Power calculations indicated that, across tissues, minor differences in genetic effects are expected to have a significant impact on detection of trans-eQTLs. Trans-eQTLs generally show smaller effects than cis-eQTLs and have a higher false discovery rate, particularly in more heterogeneous tissues, suggesting that small biological variability, likely relating to tissue composition, may influence detection of trans-eQTLs in this system. We delineate the effects of genetic architecture on variation in gene expression and show the sensitivity of this experimental design to tissue sampling variability in large-scale eQTL studies.