Gene diversity muddles heart disease story
Service, R.F.
Science 279(5355): 1307
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0036-8075 PMID: 9508705 Document Number: 484967
Findings reported at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science from February 12 to 17 in Philadelphia show the difficulties inherent in uncovering mutations that raise the risk of heart disease. Kenneth Weiss and colleagues had studied one region of a gene coding for a protein called lipoprotein lipase. It had been suggested that some variation in this enzyme might increase the risk of heart disease, but the team found a high degree of variation in the gene among healthy people from three different ethnic backgrounds. The extent of variability will make it difficult to separate causal variations from those that merely represent evolutionary noise.