Many in vitro and in vivo studies suggest that amylin is a biologically active peptide and modulates glucose metabolism. Therefore, Amylin is a good candidate for insulin resistance and essential hypertension. To determine whether the mutation of the amylin gene is associated with essential hypertension, we scanned the amylin gene for mutations in Korean hypertensives and normotensives by single-strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP), found a single heterozygous missense mutation (AGC^(scr) to GGC^(Gly) : S20G mutation) in 2 hypertensive patients (frequency 2.3%, n=87) and an unknown mutation in 3 normotensive control (frequency 3.6%, n=83). Our data suggests that the S20G mutation in the coding region of the amylin gene may be associated with susceptibility to essential hypertension, but is not a major determinant of amylin function or of the pathophysiology of essential hypertension.