Researchers have used a new gene-hunting technique to pinpoint a
novel genetic variant that raises some people's odds of having a
heart attack. The results, reported online today in Science,
suggest a possible new contributor to heart disease and could
lead to a genetic test to pinpoint people who are susceptible.
Over the past decade, many genes have been reported to increase
the risk of heart disease, but few of these findings have held
up in subsequent studies. In the current work, researchers
applied a new approach called genome-wide association, which
utilizes a set of markers spanning the entire genome, to compare
the DNA of heart disease patients with that of healthy people
(ScienceNOW, 26 April). In one study, researchers at deCODE
Genetics Inc., in Reykjavik, Iceland, used 300,000 genetic
markers to scan the DNA of 1607 Icelanders who had had heart
attacks, along with DNA from 6728 healthy controls. They found a
genetic variant on chromosome 9 that was much more common in
people who had suffered a he