Gene changes linked to heart function in patients with enlarged hearts

Cardiomyopathy is a heart disease that causes your heart to get weaker and larger. There are several forms of this disease. Over 80 different genes have been linked to forms of this disease that run in families. But, not everyone who has changes in those genes has the disease . We don’t know yet how these gene changes affect the disease. You may need to have several of these gene changes to get the disease. And some gene changes may not be truly linked to the disease. This project is going to use BioVU to test if the gene changes we think cause cardiomyopathy are actually linked to the disease. They will also figure out if those gene changes predict the risk of other people getting this disease. Finally, there are some gene changes we don’t understand. The scientists are going to find people who have these “unknown” gene changes. Then they will look at what diseases they might have to see if there is a link between the genes and any of their diseases.