Liu R, et al. - In patients with essential hypertension (HTN), coronary heart disease (CHD) and HTN + CHD, researchers measured circulating bone morphogenetic protein9 (BMP9) levels in this cross-sectional study. They also assessed the link between circulating BMP9 and these cardiovascular diseases. Overall 417 subjects were recruited. In HTN, CHD and HTN + CHD subjects, significantly low circulating BMP9 levels were detected as compared to healthy individuals. The association of circulating BMP9 levels with HTN, HTN + CHD and CHD was evident in multivariate logistic regression analysis. A significantly high risk of HTN or/and CHD was found in individuals with low quartile of circulating BMP9 vs those in high quartile. Findings were suggestive of a likely role of BMP9 as a biomarker for cardiovascular disease in humans. Its possible role in the progression of cardiovascular disease was also suggested.