Risk of coronary artery disease gets new genomic score

Genomes of 482 629 people have allowed constructing genomic score predicting the risk of developing heart diseases.

Coronary artery disease (also: ischemic heart disease) is the first cause of death in the world. Known environmental factors involved in the disease include high cholesterol, obesity, physical inactivity, high blood pressure, high blood glucose, low fruit and vegetable in a diet. In addition to them, for a long time, there was a suspicion of a genome role.

In a study based on 22 424 coronary artery disease cases, over 1.7 million genetic variants were detected and associated with 26,8% heritability of the disease. All new variants composed a new genomic score: metaGRS.

MetaGRS is sixth genomic score trying to associate mutations with coronary artery disease. However, researchers show that metaGRS is predicting highest differences between healthy and endangered group and has highest sensitivity. Combination of metaGRS and environmental factors raises C-index (a measure of fitting prediction) from 0.67 to 0.70.