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Clinical MedicineCardiologyGenetics Free access | 10.1172/JCI84840

Large-scale genome-wide analysis identifies genetic variants associated with cardiac structure and function

Philipp S. Wild,1,2,3 Janine F. Felix,4 Arne Schillert,5,6 Alexander Teumer,7,8 Ming-Huei Chen,9 Maarten J.G. Leening,4,10 Uwe Völker,8,11 Vera Großmann,2 Jennifer A. Brody,12 Marguerite R. Irvin,13 Sanjiv J. Shah,14 Setia Pramana,15 Wolfgang Lieb,16 Reinhold Schmidt,17 Alice V. Stanton,18,19 Dörthe Malzahn,20 Albert Vernon Smith,21,22 Johan Sundström,23 Cosetta Minelli,24 Daniela Ruggiero,25 Leo-Pekka Lyytikäinen,26,27 Daniel Tiller,28 J. Gustav Smith,29,30,31 Claire Monnereau,4,32,33 Marco R. Di Tullio,34 Solomon K. Musani,35 Alanna C. Morrison,36 Tune H. Pers,37,38,39,40 Michael Morley,41 Marcus E. Kleber,42 AortaGen Consortium,43 Jayashri Aragam,44,45 Emelia J. Benjamin,46,47 Joshua C. Bis,12 Egbert Bisping,48 Ulrich Broeckel,49 CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium,50 Susan Cheng,46,51 Jaap W. Deckers,10 Fabiola Del Greco M,52 Frank Edelmann,53 Myriam Fornage,54 Lude Franke,55 Nele Friedrich,8,56 Tamara B. Harris,57 Edith Hofer,17,58 Albert Hofman,4 Jie Huang,59,60 Alun D. Hughes,61 Mika Kähönen,62,63 KNHI investigators,64 Jochen Kruppa,5,65 Karl J. Lackner,66 Lars Lannfelt,67 Rafael Laskowski,68 Lenore J. Launer,69 Margrét Leosdottir,70 Honghuang Lin,46,71 Cecilia M. Lindgren,72,73 Christina Loley,5 Calum A. MacRae,73,74 Deborah Mascalzoni,52 Jamil Mayet,75,76 Daniel Medenwald,28 Andrew P. Morris,72,77 Christian Müller,78 Martina Müller-Nurasyid,79,80,81 Stefania Nappo,25 Peter M. Nilsson,82,83 Sebastian Nuding,84 Teresa Nutile,25 Annette Peters,80,85 Arne Pfeufer,86 Diana Pietzner,28 Peter P. Pramstaller,52,87,88 Olli T. Raitakari,89,90 Kenneth M. Rice,91 Fernando Rivadeneira,4,32,92 Jerome I. Rotter,93 Saku T. Ruohonen,90 Ralph L. Sacco,94,95,96 Tandaw E. Samdarshi,97 Helena Schmidt,98 Andrew S.P. Sharp,99 Denis C. Shields,100,101 Rossella Sorice,25,102 Nona Sotoodehnia,12,103 Bruno H. Stricker,4,92,104 Praveen Surendran,19,101 Simon Thom,75,76 Anna M. Töglhofer,98 André G. Uitterlinden,4,92 Rolf Wachter,105 Henry Völzke,7,8 Andreas Ziegler,5,6,106,107 Thomas Münzel,3,68 Winfried März,42,108,109 Thomas P. Cappola,41 Joel N. Hirschhorn,37,38,110 Gary F. Mitchell,111 Nicholas L. Smith,112,113,114 Ervin R. Fox,97 Nicole D. Dueker,115 Vincent W.V. Jaddoe,4,32,33 Olle Melander,82,83 Martin Russ,84,116 Terho Lehtimäki,26,27 Marina Ciullo,25,102 Andrew A. Hicks,52 Lars Lind,23 Vilmundur Gudnason,21,22 Burkert Pieske,48,53,117 Anthony J. Barron,75,76 Robert Zweiker,48 Heribert Schunkert,80,118 Erik Ingelsson,119,120 Kiang Liu,14 Donna K. Arnett,13 Bruce M. Psaty,113,121 Stefan Blankenberg,6,78 Martin G. Larson,122,123 Stephan B. Felix,8,124 Oscar H. Franco,4 Tanja Zeller,6,78 Ramachandran S. Vasan,46,47 and Marcus Dörr8,124

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

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1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Felix, J. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Schillert, A. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Teumer, A. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar |

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Chen, M. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Leening, M. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Völker, U. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Großmann, V. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Brody, J. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Irvin, M. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Shah, S. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Pramana, S. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Lieb, W. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Schmidt, R. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Stanton, A. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Malzahn, D. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Smith, A. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar |

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Sundström, J. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar |

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Minelli, C. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar |

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Ruggiero, D. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar |

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Lyytikäinen, L. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Tiller, D. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Smith, J. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Monnereau, C. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar |

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Di Tullio, M. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Musani, S. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Morrison, A. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Pers, T. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Morley, M. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Kleber, M. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Aragam, J. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Benjamin, E. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar |

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Bis, J. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Bisping, E. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Broeckel, U. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

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1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Deckers, J. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Del Greco M, F. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Edelmann, F. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Fornage, M. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Franke, L. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Friedrich, N. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Harris, T. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Hofer, E. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Hofman, A. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Huang, J. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Hughes, A. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by Kähönen, M. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

57Laboratory of Epidemiology, Demography, and Biometry, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

58Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

59Boston VA Research Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

60Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

61Institute of Cardiovascular Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

62Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland.

63Department of Clinical Physiology, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

64KNHI investigators and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

65University of Veterinary Medicine, Foundation Institute of Veterinary Medicine and Genetics, Hannover, Germany.

66Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

67Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Geriatrics, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

68Department of Medicine 2, University Medical Center Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

69Neuroepidemiology Section, National Institute on Aging, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

70Department of Cardiology, Lund University, and Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

71Section of Computational Biomedicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

72Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.

73Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

74Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

75International Centre for Circulatory Health, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.

76NHLI, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

77Department of Biostatistics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

78Department of General and Interventional Cardiology, University Heart Center Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.

79Department of Medicine I, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany.

80DZHK, partner site Munich Heart Alliance, Munich, Germany.

81Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

82Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden.

83Department of Internal Medicine, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden.

84Department of Medicine III, University Clinics Halle (Saale), Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

85Institute of Epidemiology II, Helmholtz Zentrum München – German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.

86Institute of Human Genetics, Helmholtz Zentrum München, Neuherberg, Germany.

87Department of Neurology, General Central Hospital, Bolzano, Italy.

88Department of Neurology, University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

89Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland.

90Research Centre of Applied and Preventive Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.

91Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

92Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

93Institute for Translational Genomics and Population Sciences, Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute and Department of Pediatrics, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, USA.

94Department of Neurology and

95McKnight Brain Institute, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

96Departments of Public Health Sciences and Human Genomics, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

97Division of Cardiology, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

98Institute of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

99Department of Cardiology, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom.

100UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research and

101School of Medicine and Medical Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.

102IRCCS Neuromed, Pozzilli, Isernia, Italy.

103Division of Cardiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

104Inspectorate for Health Care, Utrecht, Netherlands.

105Department of Cardiology and Pneumology, University Medical Center of Göttingen, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

106School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.

107Zentrum für Klinische Studien, Universität Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

108Synlab Academy, Synlab Services GmbH, Mannheim, Germany.

109Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.

110Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

111Cardiovascular Engineering Inc., Norwood, Massachusetts, USA.

112Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

113Group Health Research Institute, Group Health Cooperative, Seattle, Washington, USA.

114Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development, Seattle, Washington, USA.

115John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA.

116Helios-Amperklinikum Dachau, Dachau, Germany.

117German Heart Institute Berlin DHZB, Department of Internal Medicine/Cardiology, Berlin, Germany.

118Deutsches Herzzentrum, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

119Department of Medical Sciences, Molecular Epidemiology and Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

120Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.

121Cardiovacular Health Research Unit, Departments of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

122Biostatistics Department, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

123Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

124Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

Address correspondence to: Philipp S. Wild, Center for Cardiology and Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany. Phone: 49.6131.17.7163; E-mail: philipp.wild@unimedizin-mainz.de. Or to: Janine F. Felix, Department of Epidemiology, room Na-2906, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, P.O. Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands. Phone: 31.10.70.43997; E-mail: j.felix@erasmusmc.nl. Or to: Ramachandran S. Vasan, Sections of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology and Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, and the Framingham Heart Study, 801 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 470, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA. Phone: 617.638.8080; E-mail: vasan@bu.edu. Or to: Marcus Dörr, Department of Internal Medicine B, University Medicine Greifswald, Ferdinand-Sauerbruch Str., 17475 Greifswald, Germany. Phone: 49.3834.86.80510; E-mail: mdoerr@uni-greifswald.de.

Authorship note: P.S. Wild, J.F. Felix, A. Schillert, and A. Teumer, as well as T. Zeller, R.S. Vasan, and M. Dörr, contributed equally to this work.

Find articles by investigators, K. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar

1Preventive Cardiology and Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine 2, and

2Center for Thrombosis and Hemostasis, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.

3DZHK (German Centre for Cardiovascular Research), partner site RhineMain, Mainz, Germany.

4Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

5Institute for Medical Biometry and Statistics, University Lübeck, University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, Germany.

6DZHK, partner site Hamburg/Kiel/Lübeck, Hamburg, Germany.

7Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

8DZHK, partner site Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

9Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

10Department of Cardiology, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

11Interfaculty Institute of Genetics and Functional Genomics, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.

12Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.

13Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

14Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

15Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

16Institute of Epidemiology and Popgen Biobank, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany.

17Department of Neurology, Clinical Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

18Blood Pressure Unit, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland.

19Department of Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin, Ireland.

20Department of Genetic Epidemiology, University Medical Center, Georg-August University, Göttingen, Germany.

21Icelandic Heart Association, Kopavogur, Iceland.

22Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.

23Department of Medical Sciences, Cardiovascular Epidemiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.

24Population Health and Occupational Disease, National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

25Institute of Genetics and Biophysics A. Buzzati-Traverso, CNR, Naples, Italy.

26Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories, Tampere, Finland.

27Department of Clinical Chemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.

28Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany.

29Department of Cardiology, Lund University and Skåne University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.

30Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

31Center for Human Genetic Research and Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

32The Generation R Study Group and

33Department of Pediatrics, Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

34Department of Medicine, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.

35Jackson Heart Study, University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi, USA.

36Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA.

37Medical and Population Genetics Program, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

38Division of Endocrinology and Center for Basic and Translational Obesity Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

39Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

40Statens Serum Institut, Department of Epidemiology Research, Copenhagen, Denmark.

41Penn Cardiovascular Institute and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

42Vth Department of Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.

43Members of the AortaGen Consortium and their affiliations are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

44Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

45Veteran’s Administration Hospital, West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

46National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s and Boston University’s Framingham Heart Study, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA.

47Sections of Cardiology, Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

48Department of Cardiology, Medical University Graz, Graz, Austria.

49Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.

50Members of the CHARGE-Heart Failure Consortium are detailed in the Supplemental Acknowledgments.

51Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

52Center for Biomedicine, European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen, Bolzano, Italy – Affiliated institute of the University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany.

53Department of Cardiology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Virchow-Klinikum, Berlin, Germany.

54University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas, USA.

55Department of Genetics, University of Groningen, University Medical Centre Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.

56Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Medicine Greifswa