Genetics of congenital heart disease: the glass half empty.

ABSTRACT: Congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common congenital anomaly in newborn babies. Cardiac malformations have been produced in multiple experimental animal models, by perturbing selected molecules that function in the developmental pathways involved in myocyte specification, differentiation, or cardiac morphogenesis. In contrast, the precise genetic, epigenetic, or environmental basis for these perturbations in humans remains poorly understood. Over the past few decades, researchers have tried to bridge this knowledge gap through conventional genome-wide analyses of rare Mendelian CHD families, and by sequencing candidate genes in CHD cohorts. Although yielding few, usually highly penetrant, disease gene mutations, these discoveries provided 3 notable insights. First, human CHD mutati

SUBMITTER: Fahed AC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3827691 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature