NATURE RESEARCH JOURNALS PRESS RELEASE
For papers that will be published online on 10 November 2005
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PAPERS FROM Nature Genetics TO BE PUBLISHED AOP ON November 10th at 3pm EST
Heart risk from inflammatory gene variant
DOI: 10.1038/ng1692
A common variant of a gene involved in inflammation is associated with a
significantly increased risk of heart attack in Americans of European and of
African descent. The variant is associated with a greater risk in the
African-American population in particular.
Anna Helgadottir and Kári Stefansson and colleagues report in a paper
published online by Nature Genetics this week that genetic markers
surrounding the LTA4 gene encoding the leukotriene A4 hydrolase enzyme
indicate the risk variant may originally have come from the European
American population, where it is slightly more prevalent in those who have
suffered or heart attack -- the risk variant is 1.16-1.19. But this variant
is 3.57 times more common in African American individuals who have had a
heart attack than in African Americans who have not.
There are at least two possible reasons why the risk variant is more
prevalent in African Americans who have had a heart attack. This difference
may reflect the interaction of the risk variant with environmental or social
influences that vary between the groups. Or the risk variant might interact
with gene variants elsewhere in the genome that are themselves present at
different frequencies in these two groups in the American population because
of their divergent ancestral histories. Around 7.1 million Americans age 20
and older have survived a heart attack, and coronary heart disease is the
United States' single leading cause of death.
Author Contact
Kári Stefansson (deCODE Genetics Inc., Reykjavik, Iceland)
Tel: + 354 5701900, E-mail: [email protected]
Edward M. Farmer - Director of Corporate Communication (deCODE Genetics
Inc., Reykjavik, Iceland)
Tel: +1 212 343 2819, Cell: +1 646 417 4555, E-mail: [email protected]
PLEASE NOTE - Dr Kári Stefansson is scheduled to speak at the American Heart
Association's 2005 Scientific Sessions on Sunday 13 November in a panel
entitled 'From Human Genome Sequence to Coronary Atherosclerosis and
Myocardial Infarction: Frontiers in Genetics and Genomics'. He will also be
speaking on Tuesday 15 November on 'Variants of genes in the leukotriene
pathway and risk of MI.'
For more information on this, please go to:
http://scientificsessions.americanheart.org/portal/scientificsessions/ss
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