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. 2014 Apr 1;63(12):1200-1210.
doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2013.12.015. Epub 2014 Jan 30.

Novel genetic markers associate with atrial fibrillation risk in Europeans and Japanese

Steven A Lubitz #  1   2 Kathryn L Lunetta #  3   4 Honghuang Lin #  3   5 Dan E Arking #  6 Stella Trompet #  7   8 Guo Li #  9 Bouwe P Krijthe #  10   11 Daniel I Chasman #  12   13 John Barnard #  14 Marcus E Kleber #  15 Marcus Dörr #  16   17 Kouichi Ozaki #  18 Albert V Smith #  19 Martina Müller-Nurasyid #  20   21   22 Stefan Walter #  23 Sunil K Agarwal  24 Joshua C Bis  9 Jennifer A Brody  9 Lin Y Chen  25 Brendan M Everett  12   26 Ian Ford  27 Oscar H Franco  10   11 Tamara B Harris  28 Albert Hofman  10   11 Stefan Kääb  20   29 Saagar Mahida  30 Sekar Kathiresan  31 Michiaki Kubo  32 Lenore J Launer  28 Peter W MacFarlane  33 Jared W Magnani  3   34 Barbara McKnight  35 David D McManus  36 Annette Peters  29   37 Bruce M Psaty  9   38   39   40 Lynda M Rose  41 Jerome I Rotter  42 Guenther Silbernagel  43 Jonathan D Smith  44 Nona Sotoodehnia  9   45 David J Stott  46 Kent D Taylor  47 Andreas Tomaschitz  48 Tatsuhiko Tsunoda  49 Andre G Uitterlinden  10   11   50 David R Van Wagoner  51 Uwe Völker  17   52 Henry Völzke  17   53 Joanne M Murabito #  3   54 Moritz F Sinner #  20 Vilmundur Gudnason #  19 Stephan B Felix #  16   17 Winfried März #  15   55   56 Mina Chung #  51   57 Christine M Albert #  12   26   41 Bruno H Stricker #  10   11   50   58 Toshihiro Tanaka #  18   59 Susan R Heckbert #  9   39   40 J Wouter Jukema #  60 Alvaro Alonso #  61 Emelia J Benjamin #  3   34   62   63 Patrick T Ellinor #  1   2
Affiliations

Novel genetic markers associate with atrial fibrillation risk in Europeans and Japanese

Steven A Lubitz et al. J Am Coll Cardiol. .

Abstract

Objectives: This study sought to identify nonredundant atrial fibrillation (AF) genetic susceptibility signals and examine their cumulative relations with AF risk.

Background: AF-associated loci span broad genomic regions that may contain multiple susceptibility signals. Whether multiple signals exist at AF loci has not been systematically explored.

Methods: We performed association testing conditioned on the most significant, independently associated genetic markers at 9 established AF loci using 2 complementary techniques in 64,683 individuals of European ancestry (3,869 incident and 3,302 prevalent AF cases). Genetic risk scores were created and tested for association with AF in Europeans and an independent sample of 11,309 individuals of Japanese ancestry (7,916 prevalent AF cases).

Results: We observed at least 4 distinct AF susceptibility signals on chromosome 4q25 upstream of PITX2, but not at the remaining 8 AF loci. A multilocus score comprised 12 genetic markers demonstrated an estimated 5-fold gradient in AF risk. We observed a similar spectrum of risk associated with these markers in Japanese. Regions containing AF signals on chromosome 4q25 displayed a greater degree of evolutionary conservation than the remainder of the locus, suggesting that they may tag regulatory elements.

Conclusions: The chromosome 4q25 AF locus is architecturally complex and harbors at least 4 AF susceptibility signals in individuals of European ancestry. Similar polygenic AF susceptibility exists between Europeans and Japanese. Future work is necessary to identify causal variants, determine mechanisms by which associated loci predispose to AF, and explore whether AF susceptibility signals classify individuals at risk for AF and related morbidity.

Keywords: atrial fibrillation; atrial flutter; genetic; prognosis; risk.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Genome-wide and conditional associations between genetic variants and atrial fibrillation
Associations between genetic variants and atrial fibrillation are displayed (A) across the genome in marginal association analyses as previously reported (12) and (B) at each genome-wide significant susceptibility locus after adjustment for the genotype of the most significantly associated SNP at that locus.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Regional association between variants on chromosome 4q25 and atrial fibrillation after adjustment for the top SNP at the locus in the AFGen sample
Associations between SNPs and atrial fibrillation at the chromosome 4q25 locus (A) before and (B) after adjustment for the genotype of the top SNP (rs6817105) are displayed. Additional distinct susceptibility signals discovered in this analysis are represented by purple circles and are labeled. The strength of linkage disequilibrium between genetic variants in relation to rs6817105 is indicated by the color gradient as denoted in the legend. The region displayed is limited to a 310 kb segment containing the associated non-redundant signals. Linkage data and recombination rates are derived from the HapMap phase II CEU panel.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Graded relative risk of atrial fibrillation stratified by the number of susceptibility alleles in Europeans and Japanese
The risk of atrial fibrillation is plotted according to the unweighted number of estimated distinct atrial fibrillation risk alleles, relative to that among individuals with the most common number of estimated risk alleles for (A) chromosome 4q25, and (B) all genome-wide significant atrial fibrillation susceptibility loci in individuals of European ancestry from AFGen. Replicated associations in the BioBank Japan sample are displayed in (C) and (D), respectively. The distribution of risk alleles in the sample is displayed in the bar graph to the left of the risk plots. The AF risk alleles are listed in Table 3.

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