Punnett's Square

According to an article published recently in HHMI, Christine Seidman, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and her team have done extensive research on at least forty separate genes responsible for dilated cardiomyopathy.  Dilated cardiomyopathy is a medical condition in which the heart becomes enlarged and weakened, thereby reducing its capacity to pump blood with enough vigor to deliver oxygen to the body effectively.  Debilitating symptoms include shortness of breathe and persistent fatigue.  Dilated cardiomyopathy tends to run in families, and so genetic causation is a likely explanation of its pathology.  The fact that dilated cardiomyopathy is influenced by at least forty known genes means it can be considered polygenic inheritance, or an additive effect of two or more genes on a single phenotype, perhaps even resulting in a gradation termed quantitative character.    Until recently, the genes suspected of contributing to dilated cardiomyopathy that have been sequenced have been relatively short, anywhere from the 675 amino acid residues of Lamin A/C to the 2,000 amino acid residues of the motor protein myosin.  Titin, a protein which helps assemble the sarcomere as the heart muscle grows and also plays a role in muscle contractions, on the other hand is a staggering 33,000 amino acid residues long.  As Dr. Seidman explains, “It wasn’t that we weren’t aware that titin caused disease—we were.  The problem was that the technology was not sufficiently robust to allow comprehensive analysis of that gene in a large collection of patients.”  As a result, genetic causation of dilated cardiomyopathy had remained not fully understood.

However, recent technological innovations which have made DNA sequencing fast and relatively inexpensive have allowed Dr. Seidman and her team to finally sequence the giant gene sequence of titin and record genetic mutations in the gene in patients who suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy.  The results were fruitful:  28 percent of the people who had dilated cardiomyopathy also had dramatic mutations in the DNA encoding titin, mutatations which resulted in non-functional protein products.  Among the forty known genes known to influence dilated cardiomyopathy, titin by far had the highest percent correlation between gene mutation and phenotypically observable disease state.

Dr. Seidman hopes that her team’s findings demonstrating the strong correlation between titin mutation and dilated cardiomyopathy will result in a more proactive approach to preventive medicine and prophylactic treatments.  She also hopes that scientifically mapping the congenital causes of dilated cardiomyopathy might shed light on the pathophysiological mechanisms which enlarge and weaken the heart in afflicted patients in the first place, which would further lead scientists to curative medicines.

Sliding filament model of muscle contraction. (Titin labeled at upper right).

Adermatoglyphia is a condition which causes people to be born without fingerprints. Only four different families have been diagnosed with this condition, and researchers recently discovered the gene involved. The mutation became known publically when a woman in Switzerland with this condition had difficulty traveling across international borders. This has led it to be called the immigration-delay disease. The study of the family included seven people with fingerprints and nine without, which led to the determination of the specific mutation. People with this condition have a mutation in the smaller form of the SMARCAD1 gene, which was previously unknown to scientists. People with this defect are perfectly healthy, aside from a minor reduction in the ability to sweat.

Though this article wasn’t extremely current (2003), it was interesting. My professor brought up the possibility of things other than physical traits being genetically linked. She mentioned that her grandfather had been an engineer and her son became one as well. She said that they had never met and she doubted that her son even knew what his great-grandfather had done for a living. I started to think about other traits and if they might be genetically linked. Art runs in my family. My cousin and I both enjoy painting and drawing (he actually went to school for art) and, before the tremors started, my uncle was a very talented painter. Could artistic ability be genetically linked? I didn’t find anything about that, but according to Professor Richard Klein, Professor of Anthropological Studies at Stanford, the explosion of art and culture that occurred in humans between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago was due to a “genetic mutation”. Evidence in support of this theory cites FOXP2, the first gene proved to affect the ability to learn and process language. So according to this guy, our language abilities as a species reflect our artistic abilities (i.e. making and wearing jewelry and drawing cave paintings, etc.). Art is a form of communication so this makes sense.