The arrangement of the coronary artery trunks is subject to inheritance factors: A study in Syrian hamsters

The concept that anatomical variations in the coronary artery tree might be influenced by genes is relatively old. However, empirical evidence on the effect of genotype on the coronary morphology is still scarce. In the Syrian hamster, there is a septal coronary artery which arises from the left or from the right coronary artery and supplies most of the interventricular septum. The aim was to decide whether the anatomical origin of the septal artery is subject to inheritance factors. Overall, 483 internal casts of the heart and coronary arteries were examined. All the hamsters included in this study had normal coronary arteries. The results of 74 crosses were compared statistically to seek for any significant difference between the phenotypes of the offspring and the phenotypes of the parents. The left septal artery was over-represented in the offspring of crosses between parents having both a left septal artery (p < .01), while the right septal artery was over-represented in the offspring of crosses between parents, one with a right and the other with a left septal artery (p < .001), and, more markedly, in the offspring of crosses between parents both with a right septal artery (p < .001). These results are the first to reveal that the coronary artery pattern is influenced by genetic factors, at least in its proximal portion with regard to the aorta.