Hypertension is a multifactorial disorder in which the genetic and environmental factors are involved. In a view of the effects for hypertension as a risk factor for hypertension, we investigated the genotype and allele frequencies in the four RFLPs of the apo AI-CIII-AIV gene cluster (G to A mutation at position -75 in the apo AI promoter SstI RFLP in the ape CIII gene and HincII and HinfI RFLPs in the apo AIV gene) in the Korean patients with hypertension and normal controls. The AA genotype frequency of the G to A promoter polymorphism in hypertensives was significantly higher than that of normotensives (P < 0.05). None of the other polymorphisms showed a difference in genotype frequency between two groups. Therefore, our result suggest that the G to A promoter polymorphism of the ape AI gene may be useful as genetic marker in the ethiology of hypertension.