Ottawa Team Identifies Genes That Increase Heart Disease Risk, Canada

Main Category: Genetics
Also Included In: Cardiovascular / Cardiology
Article Date: 01 Feb 2008 - 1:00 PDT

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New technological advances have enabled an Ottawa-based research team to identify more than 150 new gene markers linked to coronary artery disease (CAD). They are now launching a new CIHR-funded study involving 12,000 individuals to verify the results. "Identifying the genes that predispose to CAD is a necessary prerequisite to identify who is at risk and develop drugs or treatments that are tailored to each person's set of genes," says Dr. Robert Roberts, President, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute who is leading the Ottawa Heart Genomics Study.

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the #1 cause of death in Canada. Genes contribute more than half of the risk for CAD. The goal of the Ottawa Heart Genomics Study is to identify the genes associated with CAD. Previous studies failed to identify genes that cause CAD because technical limitations did not allow all of the 25,000 genes in the human genome to be assessed at the same time.

New technological advances available at the Canadian Cardiovascular Genetics Centre of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute now enable us to look at all the genes at once. The frequency of gene markers in 1,000 patients with early onset CAD will be compared to 1,000 healthy people. We have genotyped 505 CAD patients and 595 controls using 500,000 markers with 98.7% efficiency to yield 542,850,000 genotypes.

This enormous dataset has identified 17 markers within genes, 134 that occur near genes and 11 that occur between genes but in regions controlling gene expression, to be strongly associated with CAD. The genes that associate with CAD in the first study will be verified in a second population of 8,000 patients and 4,000 healthy controls to confirm their association with CAD.

Identifying the genes that predispose to CAD is a necessary prerequisite to identify who is at risk and develop drugs or treatments that are tailored to each person's set of genes.

Canadian Institutes of Health Research