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Heart risk in inflammatory gene variant
REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Nov 14, 2005 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Icelandic scientists say a variant of a gene involved in inflammation is linked with increased heart attack risk in Americans of European or African descent.
Drs. Anna Helgadottir and Kari Stefansson and colleagues of deCODE Genetics Inc., in Reykjavik say genetic markers surrounding the LTA4 gene encoding the leukotriene A4 hydrolase enzyme indicate the risk variant may originally have come from the European-American population, where it is slightly more prevalent in those who have suffered heart attack.
But the researchers found the variant is 3.57 times more common in African-American individuals who have had a heart attack than in African-Americans who have not.
The scientists say there are at least two reasons why the risk variant is more prevalent in African-Americans who have had a heart attack. This difference may reflect the interaction of the risk variant with environmental or social influences that vary between the groups. Or the risk variant might interact with gene variants elsewhere in the genome that are, themselves, present at different frequencies in the two groups in the American population because of their divergent ancestral histories.
The study is reported in the journal Nature Genetics.
URL: www.upi.com
Copyright 2005 by United Press International
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As of Thursday, 11-10-2005 23:59, the latest Comtex SmarTrend(SM) Alert, an automated pattern recognition system, indicated an UPTREND on 10-25-2005 for DCGN @ $8.52.