Heart Disease Weekly
Publisher: CW Henderson
Issue: July 28, 2002
Page: 2

Acute Myocardial Infarction
World first: Melbourne researchers locate genes that cause heart attack


2002 JUL 28 - (NewsRx.com) -- A University of Melbourne-led team has discovered the location of the genes that can cause heart attack.

University of Melbourne researchers, along with doctors and scientists from eight Melbourne hospitals, have located three genes that make heart attack more likely.

According to team leader Professor Stephen Harrap, department of physiology, this is the first genetic study in the world to focus exclusively on heart attack and it will pave the way for new means of prevention and treatment.

"We knew that factors such as high blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking predispose to heart attack but the challenge was to find the genes that tip the balance," Harrap said.

"There has always been a gap in our knowledge of what causes heart attack and we can currently only attribute about half of heart attack cases to known risk factors. It is likely that the genes we are now researching underpin these mysterious mechanisms."

The discovery, published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, involved testing the DNA of brothers and sisters who had experienced heart attacks.

"We used genetics maps to scan the chromosomes and looked for regions that were especially similar between the brothers and sisters with heart attack histories," he said.

"Our research found that regions on chromosomes 2, 3 and 20 were linked with heart attack."

Professor Harrap said that the hunt is now on to pinpoint the exact genetic mutations and it is likely that new causes of heart attack will be revealed (Harrap SB, Zammit KS, Wong ZYH. Genome-wide linkage analysis of the acute coronary syndrome suggests a locus on chromosome 2, Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol, 2002;22(5):874-878).

"We are now trying to discover exactly what these genes are doing so that we can learn how they effect heart disease and then develop new methods for prevention and treatment."

This article was prepared by Heart Disease Weekly editors from staff and other reports. Copyright 2002, Heart Disease Weekly via NewsRx.com.