Finding out why a certain gene variant carried by 20% of us raises the risk of stroke.

Determining the mechanisms by which the HDAC9 genetic risk variant leads to stroke

A quarter of all strokes occur due to narrowing of the large vessel – the carotid artery – carrying blood to the brain. Factors such as obesity, smoking and high blood pressure increase a person’s risk of stroke and a particular form of one gene – found in one fifth of the population - has recently been discovered to be a possible risk factor too. The stroke-prone gene is a variation of a gene known as HDAC9. No-one knows why this particular variant is associated with an increased risk of stroke, but this team intend to find out. In this project, they will use stem cells developed from a piece of skin donated by people who’ve had a stroke and carry the HDAC9 stoke-prone variant. From the stem cells, they’ll create blood vessel cells mimicking the patients’ carotid arteries in the lab. They will then study how the variant changes the way blood vessel cells behave, compared to those carrying an unchanged HDAC9 gene. Understanding how this gene variant raises the risk of stroke in so many people is crucial. In the future, these results could help identify new therapies to prevent stroke in thousands of people.