title: Whole blood gene expression and atrial fibrillation: the Framingham Heart Study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Atrial fibrillation (AF) involves substantial electrophysiological, structural and contractile remodeling. We hypothesize that characterizing gene expression might uncover important pathways related to AF.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We performed genome-wide whole blood transcriptomic profiling (Affymetrix Human Exon 1.0 ST Array) of 2446 participants (mean age 66 ± 9 years, 55% women) from the Offspring cohort of Framingham Heart Study. The study included 177 participants with prevalent AF, 143 with incident AF during up to 7 years follow up, and 2126 participants with no AF. We identified seven genes statistically significantly up-regulated with prevalent AF. The most significant gene, PBX1 (P = 2.8 × 10(-7)), plays an important role in cardiovascular development. We integrated differential gene expression with gene-gene interaction information to identify several signaling pathways possibly involved in AF-related transcriptional regulation. We did not detect any statistically significant transcriptomic associations with incident AF.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We examined associations of gene expression with AF in a large community-based cohort. Our study revealed several genes and signaling pathways that are potentially involved in AF-related transcriptional regulation.
authors.affiliation: Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America; National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's and Boston University's Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Honghuang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's and Boston University's Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Xiaoyan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's and Boston University's Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America; Department of Biostatistics, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Kathryn L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Lunetta
authors.affiliation: National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's and Boston University's Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America; Department of Biostatistics, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Josée
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dupuis
authors.affiliation: National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's and Boston University's Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America; Cardiology Division, Department of Medicine, and Epidemiology Division, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: David D
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: McManus
authors.affiliation: Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Steven A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Lubitz
authors.affiliation: Section of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jared W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Magnani
authors.affiliation: National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's and Boston University's Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America; Mathematical and Statistical Computing Laboratory, Center for Information Technology, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America; Population Sciences Branch, Division of Intramural Research, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Roby
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Joehanes
authors.affiliation: National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's and Boston University's Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America; Mathematical and Statistical Computing Laboratory, Center for Information Technology, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America; Population Sciences Branch, Division of Intramural Research, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Munson
authors.affiliation: National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's and Boston University's Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America; Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Martin G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Larson
authors.affiliation: National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's and Boston University's Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America; Population Sciences Branch, Division of Intramural Research, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Levy
authors.affiliation: Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, Massachusetts, United States of America; Center for Human Genetic Research, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America; Cardiac Arrhythmia Service, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America; Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Patrick T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Ellinor
authors.affiliation: National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's and Boston University's Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, United States of America; Section of Cardiovascular Medicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America; Section of Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America; Department of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Emelia J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Benjamin
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001281:Atrial Fibrillation / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000097:blood / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology; D004843:Epistasis, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D015894:Genome, Human; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000235:genetics