Exome sequencing identifies rare LDLR and APOA5 alleles conferring risk for myocardial infarction

Abstract

Myocardial infarction (MI), a leading cause of death around the world, displays a complex pattern of inheritance. When MI occurs early in life, the role of inheritance is substantially greater. Previously, rare mutations in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) genes have been shown to contribute to MI risk in individual families whereas common variants at more than 45 loci have been associated with MI risk in the population. Here, we evaluate the contribution of rare mutations to MI risk in the population. We sequenced the protein-coding regions of 9,793 genomes from patients with MI at an early age (≤50 years in males and ≤60 years in females) along with MI-free controls. We identified two genes where rare coding-sequence mutations were more frequent in cases versus controls at exome-wide significance. At low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR), carriers of rare, damaging mutations (3.1% of cases versus 1.3% of controls) were at 2.4-fold increased risk for MI; carriers of null alleles at LDLR were at even higher risk (13-fold difference). This sequence-based estimate of the proportion of early MI cases due to LDLR mutations is remarkably similar to an estimate made more than 40 years ago using total cholesterol. At apolipoprotein A-V (APOA5), carriers of rare nonsynonymous mutations (1.4% of cases versus 0.6% of controls) were at 2.2-fold increased risk for MI. When compared with non-carriers, LDLR mutation carriers had higher plasma LDL cholesterol whereas APOA5 mutation carriers had higher plasma triglycerides. Recent evidence has connected MI risk with coding sequence mutations at two genes functionally related to APOA5, namely lipoprotein lipase and apolipoprotein C3. When combined, these observations suggest that, beyond LDL cholesterol, disordered metabolism of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins contributes to MI risk.