This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Gene dosage of 9p21 linked with coronary atheromatous burden severity

Anderson JL. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2010;56:487-489.

Dandona S. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2010;56:479-486.

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

Gene dosage of the risk variant 9p21 predicted coronary artery disease burden in a new study appearing in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The Ottawa researchers performed this cross-sectional study on nondiabetic patients with CAD defined by coronary angiography having at least one epicardial stenosis >50%. They enrolled 950 patients with early onset CAD (age 56.1 ± 9.6 years) and an independent sample of 764 patients with late onset CAD (age 70 ± 8 years) from the cardiac catheterization laboratories at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute from April 15, 2006, to Aug. 15, 2008. The patients were genotyped for the single nucleotide polymorphism rs1333049 9p21 risk variant.

Researchers found that three-vessel disease had a direct association with 9p21 gene dosage among younger CAD cases (P=4.26 × 10^-4), whereas one-vessel disease demonstrated an inverse relationship with increasing gene dosage (P=2.41 × 10^-5). Gene dosage also predicted three-vessel disease in a replication sample (P=6.51 × 10^-6). Further findings revealed that 9p21 did not associate with MI once stratified for disease severity.

“For the first time, we [have shown] that gene dosage of the 9p21 risk allele predicts CAD burden,” the researchers wrote. “Given its ability to predict risk within a CAD population, genotyping 9p21 may be useful not only in determining risk for development of disease but also for risk stratification among patients with documented CAD.”

In an accompanying editorial, Jeffrey L. Anderson, MD, and Benjamin D. Horne, PhD, MPH, both of the Intermountain Medical Center at the University of Utah School of Medicine, said the researchers’ suggestion that the 9p21 marker may be useful in both primary and secondary clinical risk assessment must be validated by prospective clinical studies.

“Nevertheless, this study importantly contributes to the growing and stage-specific understanding of the role of genetics in CHD pathogenesis: 9p21 acts to facilitate initiation of coronary atherosclerosis, not to precipitate MI,” they wrote.

Follow CardiologyToday.com on Twitter.