February 19, 2016

expert reaction to study investigating a genetic test for inherited heart conditions

Publishing in the Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research group of researchers have described their efforts to develop a genetic test for diagnosis of inherited heart conditions.

All our previous output on this subject can be seen here.

Dr. Yalda Jamshidi, Senior Lecturer in Human Genetics, Cardiovascular and Cell Sciences Institute, St George’s, University of London, said:

“Genetic DNA testing is commonly used for diagnostic purposes in many clinical settings. Inherited heart conditions can be the result of changes in the DNA sequence of various genes. DNA sequencing technology can be used to identify these disease causing changes.

“The current study describes a new test whereby a combination of the genes previously implicated in cardiac conditions are sequenced together. The new panel shows some improvement over existing tests which have more limited numbers of genes included, and also more accurate results than DNA tests which aim to sequence all of the genes in the genome.

“The new panel is more comprehensive than existing smaller DNA test panels, however ultimately the difficulty with screening more and more genes will be in accurately determining which of the variants identified are indeed responsible for the disease.”

‘Development of a comprehensive sequencing assay for inherited cardiac condition genes’ by name of Chee Jian Pua et al. published in Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research on Friday 19 February 2016t. 

Declared interests

Dr. Yalda Jamshidi: No interests to declare.