Published in

Nature Research, Nature Communications, 1(9), 2018

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04766-9

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

PR interval genome-wide association meta-analysis identifies 50 loci associated with atrial and atrioventricular electrical activity

Journal article published in 2018 by Jessica van Setten ORCID, Jennifer A. Brody ORCID, Yalda Jamshidi, Brenton R. Swenson, Anne M. Butler, Harry Campbell, Fabiola M. Del Greco, Daniel S. Evans, Quince Gibson, Daniel F. Gudbjartsson, Kathleen F. Kerr ORCID, Bouwe P. Krijthe, Leo-Pekka Lyytikäinen ORCID, Christian Müller, Martina Müller-Nurasyid ORCID and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

AbstractElectrocardiographic PR interval measures atrio-ventricular depolarization and conduction, and abnormal PR interval is a risk factor for atrial fibrillation and heart block. Our genome-wide association study of over 92,000 European-descent individuals identifies 44 PR interval loci (34 novel). Examination of these loci reveals known and previously not-yet-reported biological processes involved in cardiac atrial electrical activity. Genes in these loci are over-represented in cardiac disease processes including heart block and atrial fibrillation. Variants in over half of the 44 loci were associated with atrial or blood transcript expression levels, or were in high linkage disequilibrium with missense variants. Six additional loci were identified either by meta-analysis of ~105,000 African and European-descent individuals and/or by pleiotropic analyses combining PR interval with heart rate, QRS interval, and atrial fibrillation. These findings implicate developmental pathways, and identify transcription factors, ion-channel genes, and cell-junction/cell-signaling proteins in atrio-ventricular conduction, identifying potential targets for drug development.