deCODE Discovers a Variation in the Sequence of the Genome Conferring Risk of Atrial Fibrillation

A paper published today in the journal Nature describes the discovery by scientists at deCODE genetics (NASDAQ:DCGN), in collaboration with academic colleagues in Iceland, the United States, Sweden and China, of two common single-letter variations in the genome (SNPs) conferring risk of atrial fibrillation (AF). AF is the most common cardiac arrhythmia and is also the leading cause of cardiogenic stroke. The variants, located on chromosome 4q25, confer an approximately 70% and 40% increase above average risk of AF, respectively, per copy carried. Approximately one third of people of European ancestry carry at least one copy of one of the risk variants, and deCODE's results show that those...

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