Heart Genes could hold key to SIDS

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have found two cardiac genes they believe are linked to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The research findings were presented at the Heart Rhythm Society’s Annual Scientific Sessions held in Boston recently and indicate that the suspected possibility of genetic defects in the heart could be the cause for up to 15% of all SIDS cases.

For the research, the team studied tissues taken from 135 infants with an average age of 3 months, all of whom had died due to SIDS. The combined results of the study show that two genes – Caveolin-3 (CAV3) and Cardiac Ryanodine Receptor (RyR2) are responsible for causing SIDS. Out of the 135 infants studied, only two did not have any mutations in either CAV3 or RyR2.

SIDS leads to sudden and unexplained death of an infant below 1 year of age and is believed to cause as many as 2500 infant deaths each year.

Dr. Michael J. Ackerman, Principal Investigator of the research project and Director of Mayo Clinic's Long QT Syndrome Clinic and Sudden Death Genomics Laboratory in Rochester, Minnesota stated, "Combined with our previous discoveries, we now estimate that defects in genes that provide the blueprints for the critical controllers of the heart's electrical system might have played a key role in more than 300 of those tragedies."

Dr. Ackerman informed their research had so far added six genes to the most wanted list of SIDS causes and added that they were continuing the research to try and expose more and more of the causes of this mostly unexplained syndrome.

"Although so much of SIDS remains unexplained, these findings that point to the heart for 10 percent to 15 percent of SIDS provide one place to search for a possible explanation," Dr. Ackerman said.

"For families that have lost an infant to SIDS, it would be reasonable for parents to talk with their physician to make sure there is no family history of other unexplained deaths, unexplained fainting episodes, unexplained seizures that might provide clues and prevent more deaths," he concluded.

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