Gene Suggests Asthma Drugs May Ease Cardiovascular Inflammation

摘要

Heart disease and asthma may not seem closely related, but they have a key factor in common: inflammation. In the past 2 years, a few researchers have amassed evidence that potent inflammatory molecules—called leukotrienes—known to constrict asthmatic airways also play a central role in cardiovascular disease. If so, leukotriene-inhibiting drugs developed to treat asthma might protect the heart. Capping a flurry of recent studies implicating leukotrienes in heart disease, human geneticist Kari Stefansson of deCODE Genetics in Reykjavik, Iceland, and his colleagues have now fingered the first common gene associated with a higher risk of both heart attacks and strokes. The gene codes for a protein known as FLAP, for 5-lipoxygenase-activating protein, which is required for the synthesis of leukotrienes. Certain versions of the gene double the risk of heart attack in British patients and of both heart attack and stroke in patients from Iceland, the researchers reported online this week in Nature Genetics.