Molecular Genetics of Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia. There is genetic predisposition for the development of AF. Recently, by linkage analysis, several loci have been mapped for monogenetic AF, which include 11p15.5, 21q22, 17q, 7q35-36, 5p13, 6q14-16, and 10q22. Some of these loci encode for subunits of potassium channels (KCNQ1, KCNE2, KCNJ2 and KCNH2 genes), and the remaining are yet unidentified. All of the mutations are...