Exome analysis of a family with pleiotropic congenital heart disease.

Background: A number of single gene defects have been identified in patients with isolated or nonsyndromic congenital heart defects (CHDs). However, due to significant genetic heterogeneity, candidate gene approaches have had limited success in finding high-risk alleles in most cases. The purpose of this study was to use exome sequencing to identify high-risk gene variants in a family with highly penetrant pleiotropic CHD.