Completed Heart, Stroke & Blood Diabetes, Hormones & Metabolism

Investigation of gene-lifestyle interactions on risk of confirmed first-ever myocardial infarction in South Asians: a genome-wide association study in a Pakistani population.

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Recipient organisation University of Cambridge
Funding £1.4M
Period Jun 2008 — Jun 2011

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A heart attack strikes South Asians earlier and more often than other populations, yet almost all genetic studies of heart disease have been done in people of European ancestry. This study will scan the complete genomes of thousands of people in Pakistan—half who have had a confirmed first heart attack, half who have not—to find genetic variants that raise risk specifically in this population. The same participants have already provided detailed information on smoking, diet, physical activity, and other lifestyle factors. By combining genetic data with these lifestyle measures, the researchers can ask whether certain genes amplify or reduce the harm of a poor diet, or whether exercise protects some people more than others depending on their DNA. If the project succeeds, it could reveal why South Asians develop heart disease at lower body weights and younger ages than Europeans, and point toward prevention strategies—such as tailored diet or exercise advice—that work for this group. The control group’s genetic data will also be made publicly available, giving other researchers a resource for future studies on South Asian health.

View original technical description
(i) to identify novel genetic associations by conducting GWAS in an existing, well-characterised case-control study in Pakistan of 5000 MI cases and 5000 controls, and by subsequent validation studies (ii) to quantify the joint effects of genetic and major lifestyle factors (eg, smoking, diet, physical activity) on the risk of MI in Pakistan. Considerable added value is provided because: (a) it will enable evaluation of differences in population structures between ethnic subgroups in Pakistan; (b) it expands on ongoing collaborative projects between the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI) with the latter funding the GWAS in 5000 of the participants, thereby approximately halving the amount of support required for genotyping in this study; (c) a complementary study of 2100 candidate genes (55K IBC cardiochip ) in these participants is already in progress as part of the above collaboration; (d) a large number of lifestyle, anthropometric, biochemical and other characteristics have been recorded, enriching the value of a GWAS in this study; and (e) access to information from the control group will be made available as a public

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

John Danesh (EPMC Awardee)

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Original classification

Programme Grant

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