A Common Connexion Between Gap Junctions, Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, and Atrial Fibrillation?

摘要

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common arrhythmia associated with substantial morbidity.l In younger individuals without structural heart disease, the arrhythmia is commonly referred to as "lone" AF. It is now apparent that a widespread heritable basis for AF exists, the heritability might be greater among those with lone AF as compared with older individuals or those with structural heart disease.In 1997, Brugada et al. mapped a genetic locus for AF to the long arm of chromosome 10 in a family with early onset AF and no substantial structural heart disease. Since that report, investigators have used a combination of candidate gene screening and functional characterization to identify a variety of mutations, often in ion channels, that underlie monogenic forms of AF. More recently, genome-wide association studies have been used to map 9 susceptibility loci associated with AF in case-control and population-based cohort samples.