A genetic association study of heart failure: more evidence for the role of BAG3 in idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy

Abstract

Aims: Few investigations have been conducted to identify genetic determinants of common, polygenetic forms of heart failure (HF), and only a limited number of these genetic associations have been validated by multiple groups. Methods and results: We performed a case–control study to further investigate the potential impact of 14 previously reported candidate genes on the risk of HF and specific HF sub-types. We also performed an exploratory genome-wide study. We included 799 patients with HF and 1529 controls. After adjusting for age, sex, and genetic ancestry, we found that the C allele of rs2234962 in BAG3 was associated with a decreased risk of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (odds ratio 0.42, 95% confidence interval 0.25–0.68, P = 0.0005), consistent with a previous report. No association for the other primary variants or exploratory genome-wide study was found. Conclusions: Our findings provide independent replication for the association between a common coding variant (rs2234962) in BAG3 and the risk of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy.