Clustering Heart Rate Dynamics Is Associated with β-Adrenergic Receptor Polymorphisms: Analysis by Information-Based Similarity Index

Albert C Yang, Shih-Jen Tsai, Chen-Jee Hong, Cynthia Wang, Tai-Jui Chen, Ying-Jay Liou and Chung-Kang Peng

PLOS ONE, 2011, vol. 6, issue 5, 1-8

Abstract: Background: Genetic polymorphisms in the gene encoding the β-adrenergic receptors (β-AR) have a pivotal role in the functions of the autonomic nervous system. Using heart rate variability (HRV) as an indicator of autonomic function, we present a bottom-up genotype–phenotype analysis to investigate the association between β-AR gene polymorphisms and heart rate dynamics. Methods: A total of 221 healthy Han Chinese adults (59 males and 162 females, aged 33.6±10.8 years, range 19 to 63 years) were recruited and genotyped for three common β-AR polymorphisms: β1-AR Ser49Gly, β2-AR Arg16Gly and β2-AR Gln27Glu. Each subject underwent two hours of electrocardiogram monitoring at rest. We applied an information-based similarity (IBS) index to measure the pairwise dissimilarity of heart rate dynamics among study subjects. Results: With the aid of agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis, we categorized subjects into major clusters, which were found to have significantly different distributions of β2-AR Arg16Gly genotype. Furthermore, the non-randomness index, a nonlinear HRV measure derived from the IBS method, was significantly lower in Arg16 homozygotes than in Gly16 carriers. The non-randomness index was negatively correlated with parasympathetic-related HRV variables and positively correlated with those HRV indices reflecting a sympathovagal shift toward sympathetic activity. Conclusions: We demonstrate a bottom-up categorization approach combining the IBS method and hierarchical cluster analysis to detect subgroups of subjects with HRV phenotypes associated with β-AR polymorphisms. Our results provide evidence that β2-AR polymorphisms are significantly associated with the acceleration/deceleration pattern of heart rate oscillation, reflecting the underlying mode of autonomic nervous system control.

Date: 2011
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0019232 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 19232&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0019232

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019232

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().