[Genetic background of acute coronary syndrome]

Development of acute coronary syndrome(ACS) including angina pectoris(AP) and myocardial infarction(MI) depends on complex interactions of environmental and genetic factors. In 2000, we started a genome wide association study(GWAS) for MI using nearly 100,000 gene-based single nucleotide polymorphisms(SNP), and identified lymphotoxin a (LTA) conferring risk of MI in Japanese population. This is the first study identified a disease susceptibility gene on genome wide with SNP in the worldwide. Moreover, through examining the LTA cascade by combination of biological and genetic analyses, we have identified additional MI susceptible genes, LGALS2, PSMA6 and BRAP, so far. On the other hand, recent advances in the development of cheap and accurate high throughput genotyping technologies, as well as the accumulation of information for a large set of SNP and their linkage disequilibrium by the HapMap projects(http://www. hapmap.org; The International HapMap Consortium 2005) permit us to assess the GWAS more systematically and comprehensively. Through the systematic GWAS with in individuals from European decent, genetic variants that confer susceptibility to ACS have been identified to be present on many chromosome loci. In this review, genetic background of ACS is discussed.