The Association of the 4q25 Susceptibility Variant for Atrial Fibrillation With Stroke Is Limited to Stroke of Cardioembolic Etiology

Background and Purpose—Genome-wide association studies recently identified 2 variants on chromosome 4q25 as susceptibility factors for atrial fibrillation. Interestingly, these variants were subsequently also shown to be associated with stroke. However, it remains unclear whether 4q25 associates with all the stroke subtypes or with cardioembolic stroke in particular, which is often attributable to atrial fibrillation. Methods—We performed a large case-control association study in 4199 ischemic stroke patients, all subtyped according to Trial of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment criteria, and 3750 controls derived from 6 studies conducted in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Spain, and Sweden. Two variants on chromosome 4q25, rs1906591 and rs10033464, were genotyped. Results—Within cases, the A-allele of rs1906591 was associated with atrial fibrillation (odds ratio, 1.64 [95% CI, 1.43 to 1.90]; P=9.2 · 10−12), whereas rs10033464 was only marginally associated. There was an association between overall ...