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Review
. 2008:62:33-65.
doi: 10.1016/S0065-2660(08)00602-0.

Genetics of the Framingham Heart Study population

Diddahally R Govindaraju  1 , L Adrienne Cupples  2 , William B Kannel  3 , Christopher J O'Donnell  3 , Larry D Atwood  4 , Ralph B D'Agostino Sr  5 , Caroline S Fox  3 , Marty Larson  3 , Daniel Levy  3 , Joanne Murabito  6 , Ramachandran S Vasan  7 , Greta Lee Splansky  3 , Philip A Wolf  1 , Emelia J Benjamin  7
Affiliations
Review

Genetics of the Framingham Heart Study population

Diddahally R Govindaraju et al. Adv Genet. 2008.

Abstract

This chapter provides an introduction to the Framingham Heart Study and the genetic research related to cardiovascular diseases conducted in this unique population. It briefly describes the origins of the study, the risk factors that contribute to heart disease, and the approaches taken to discover the genetic basis of some of these risk factors. The genetic architecture of several biological risk factors has been explained using family studies, segregation analysis, heritability, and phenotypic and genetic correlations. Many quantitative trait loci underlying cardiovascular diseases have been discovered using different molecular markers. Additionally, initial results from genome-wide association studies using 116,000 markers and the prospects of using 550,000 markers for association studies are presented. Finally, the use of this unique sample to study genotype and environment interactions is described.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Initiation and progression of examinations among three generations of participants in the Framingham Heart Study
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution of participants in each of the three generations in the Framingham Heart Study
Figure 3
Figure 3
Distribution of families in relation to pedigree sizes in the Framingham Heart Study
Figure 4
Figure 4
Cardiovascular risk between parents and offspring in relation to quintiles of major risk factors: systolic blood pressure, body mass index, total to high density lipoprotein-cholesterol, diabetes and smoking (Lloyd-Jones et al. 2004).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Sex difference in susceptibility to cardiovascular diseases over 26 years in the Framingham Heart Study population (Hubert et al 1983).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Variation of heritability across age groups among four traits (Brown et al., 2003)
Figure 7
Figure 7
Variation of heritability for white matter hypersensitivity volume between males and females over time (Atwood et al., 2005).
Figure 8
Figure 8
Dose dependent reaction of three genotypes of the Hepatic Lipase gene in relation to HDL concentration (Ordovas et al., 2002)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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