In vivo identification and validation of novel potential predictors for human cardiovascular diseases

Genetics crucially contributes to cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), the global leading cause of death. Since the majority of CVDs can be prevented by early intervention there is a high demand for predictive markers. While genome wide association studies (GWAS) correlate genes and CVDs after diagnosis and provide a valuable resource for such markers, preferentially those with previously known or suspected function are addressed further. To tackle the unaddressed blind spot of understudied genes, we particularly focused on the validation of heart GWAS candidates with little or no apparent connection to cardiac function. Building on the high conservation of basic heart function and underlying genetics from fish to human we combined CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing of the orthologs of human GWAS candidates in isogenic medaka with automated high-throughput heart rate analysis. Our functional analyses of understudied human candidates uncovered a prominent fraction of heart rate associated genes from adult human patients displaying a heart rate effect in embryonic medaka already in the injected generation. Following this pipeline, we identified 16 GWAS candidates with potential diagnostic and predictive power for human CVDs.