Kuipers AL, Wojczynski MK, Barinas-Mitchell E, et al. - In this investigation involving 2,205 people, researchers used family-based genome-wide linkage analysis to detect chromosomal regions potentially harboring rare variants with larger impacts for atherosclerosis related traits. The study sample consisted of people from the Long Life Family Study (LLFS), which enlisted families with exceptional longevity from Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, and Denmark. With a range of 0.68 for IAD to 0.38 for IMT, all carotid traits were significantly heritable. Three chromosomal regions with linkage to IAD (3q13; max LOD 5.3), plaque severity (17q22-q23, max LOD 3.2), and plaque presence (17q24, max LOD 3.1) were identified. Findings revealed that there were no common allelic variants associated with the carotid artery traits within these linkage peaks.