Researchers at the Joint Unit UMRS937 (Inserm / Universite Pierre et Marie Curie) directed by Francois Cambien just identified, in collaboration with colleagues in England and Germany Cardiogenics European consortium, a new region of the human genome in which several Genetic variations increase the risk of developing a myocardial infarction. The genes involved playing a role in the production of lipid transport proteins, these results may lead researchers to uncover new mechanisms involving cholesterol and risk of myocardial infarction. These works are published in the advance online edition of Nature Genetics the February 8, 2009…

In this new work, researchers show that the combination of polymorphisms located in three adjacent genes on chromosome 6 is associated with a significantly increased risk of myocardial infarction, whereas these polymorphisms were considered separately could actually be associated disease. Specifically, two of the genes thus identified encode molecules called lipoproteins, known to play a role in cholesterol metabolism, but whose role in myocardial infarction is not clearly known.

Coronary heart disease is one of the first causes of mortality in Europe, with some 750,000 deaths from myocardial infarction each year. Among the environmental risk factors include age, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, smoking, overweight, or impaired metabolism fat.



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