Madrid. A major study by a team from the Victor Chang Heart Research Institute, New York’s Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine, and other centers in Europe and the United States identified the most relevant genes that cause coronary heart disease and trigger heart attacks.
The research, published in the journal Circulation: Genomics and Precision Medicine, opens the way to a new field of specific therapies for those who are at risk of suffering from coronary diseases, the main cause of death in the world.
“First, we have more precisely defined the precise genes that are likely to cause coronary heart disease. Second, we have pinpointed exactly where in the body the main effect of these genes occurs: it may be in the arteries of the heart, which directly cause blockages, or perhaps the effect is in the liver, which increases levels of cholesterol, or in the blood, which modifies inflammation”, explained Jason Kovacic, leader of the work.
The third great achievement was to classify these genes, 162 in total, in order of priority as causes of coronary diseases. “Some of the top genes identified in this list have never really been studied in the context of heart attacks. Finding these important new genes is really exciting, but also a real challenge, as no one yet knows exactly how many of them cause coronary heart disease.”
The study included 600 patients with coronary heart disease and another 150 without it. All underwent open chest surgery to perform a bypass coronary or for other medically indicated reasons. The team used the Mount Sinai supercomputer, called Minerva, to crunch numbers, analyze data, and collate information from thousands of genes.
Kovacic hopes the findings will give new impetus to research in this area and open up a critical new field of work related to heart attacks.
Another important aspect of the study is that one of the previously suspected genes, PHACTR1, has been validated as one of the two main genes causing coronary heart disease.
#Genes #trigger #heart #attacks #identified