The Y chromosome and heart disease

Paternal lineages of the Y chromosome in predisposition to coronary artery disease and common autoimmune disorders in UK Biobank

Professor Maciej Tomaszewski and his team at the University of Manchester are working out why men are more likely to develop heart disease, particularly whether this is because they have inherited genes that predispose them to heart disease from their fathers. Present only in men, the Y chromosome is passed from fathers to sons. Professor Tomaszewski has found that genes on the human Y chromosome may affect a man’s health and susceptibility to heart disease, most likely by affecting the immune system. In this project, he will use a set of data from over 230,000 men to study how the Y chromosome affects a man’s risk of coronary artery disease and other immune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease. The team will then combine these data with additional sets of data from around 54,000 men to confirm how the Y chromosome relates to the risk of common autoimmune disorders. This research will improve our understanding of how the Y chromosome is linked to heart disease. In the longer run, it could lead to the identification of sex-specific targets for the development of personalised treatment of heart disease and immune conditions.