Atrial Fibrillation and SCN5A Variants

Although atrial fibrillation (AF) is clinically and genetically a highly heterogeneous disease, recent studies suggest that the arrhythmia may arise because of interactions between genetic and acquired risk factors—the so called “double-hit” hypothesis. Genome-wide association studies have identified common AF susceptibility loci, and linkage analysis and candidate gene approaches have identified mutations in genes that encode for cardiac ion channels and signaling proteins; however, most of the heritability of AF still remains unexplained.