Lin, HonghuangYin, XiaoyanLunetta, Kathryn L.Dupuis, JoséeMcManus, David D.Lubitz, StevenMagnani, Jared W.Joehanes, RobyMunson, Peter J.Larson, Martin G.Levy, DanielEllinor, PatrickBenjamin, Emelia J.2014-07-072014Lin, H., X. Yin, K. L. Lunetta, J. Dupuis, D. D. McManus, S. A. Lubitz, J. W. Magnani, et al. 2014. “Whole Blood Gene Expression and Atrial Fibrillation: The Framingham Heart Study.” PLoS ONE 9 (5): e96794. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0096794. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0096794.1932-6203http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:12406873Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) involves substantial electrophysiological, structural and contractile remodeling. We hypothesize that characterizing gene expression might uncover important pathways related to AF. Methods and Results: We performed genome-wide whole blood transcriptomic profiling (Affymetrix Human Exon 1.0 ST Array) of 2446 participants (mean age 66±9 years, 55% women) from the Offspring cohort of Framingham Heart Study. The study included 177 participants with prevalent AF, 143 with incident AF during up to 7 years follow up, and 2126 participants with no AF. We identified seven genes statistically significantly up-regulated with prevalent AF. The most significant gene, PBX1 (P = 2.8×10−7), plays an important role in cardiovascular development. We integrated differential gene expression with gene-gene interaction information to identify several signaling pathways possibly involved in AF-related transcriptional regulation. We did not detect any statistically significant transcriptomic associations with incident AF. Conclusion: We examined associations of gene expression with AF in a large community-based cohort. Our study revealed several genes and signaling pathways that are potentially involved in AF-related transcriptional regulation.en-USBiology and Life SciencesCell BiologySignal TransductionCell SignalingComputational BiologyGenome AnalysisGenome-Wide Association StudiesTranscriptome AnalysisGene Regulatory NetworksGeneticsGene ExpressionGenetics of DiseaseGenomicsMutationMedicine and Health SciencesCardiologyCardiovascular DiseasesArrhythmiaEpidemiologyCardiovascular Disease EpidemiologyGenetic EpidemiologyClinical Research DesignCohort StudiesJournal Article2014-07-0710.1371/journal.pone.0096794