Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of death all over the world. Beside general risk factors, there are some genetic factors which lead to cardiovascular diseases. Various nuclear DNA mutation and also mitochondrial DNA mutations have been related with cardiovascular diseases. In the present study, a total of 21 samples were collected from different families residing in district Dir. DNA was extracted from buccal epithelial cells using saliva. The mitochondrial tRNA leu (MT TL1) gene was amplified by PCR and 10 samples of different families were sequenced. The sequence was aligned with revised Cambridge Reference Sequence (rCRS) accession # NC-012920.1. It is concluded that cardiovascular diseases in our subjects are not due to mutation in the mitochondrial leucine tRNA gene. However, a large population of subjects with cardiovascular diseases needs to be studied and whole mitochondrial DNA is needed to be sequenced in the subjects with CVD. This will give an idea about the probable DNA marker which can be used to prevent loses due to these diseases at a very early stages.