The new genetic differences found by Washington University researchers in hearts with disease could ultimately lead to personalised treatment of various heart ailments.
Generally, men are more susceptible to developing atrial fibrillation, an irregular, rapid heartbeat that may lead to stroke, while women are more likely to develop long-QT syndrome, a rhythm disorder that can cause rapid heartbeats and sudden cardiac death, researchers said.
While prior studies have clearly established differences in the development of heart disease between men and women, very few studies had looked at the molecular mechanisms behind those differences in human hearts.
Researchers Igor Efimov and Christina Ambrosi, analysed 34 human hearts looking for genetic differences that might explain gender differences in heart disease.
The team took advantage of the unique opportunity at the university to obtain failing human hearts at the time of transplantation from Barnes-Jewish Hospital and non-failing hearts unsuitable for transplantation from Mid-America Transplant Services, a St Louis-based organ procurement service.
They screened for 89 major genes in electrophysiology, ion channel subunits, calcium handling proteins and transcription factors important in cardiac conduction and in the development of arrhythmia and the left atria and ventricles in human hearts.
"What was striking in this study is that we expected very large gender differences in expression of genes in the ventricles, but we did not find such differences.
"Unexpectedly, we found huge gender differences in the atria," said Efimov in a statement.
The results showed that women with failing hearts have a weaker system of gene expression than men
