**5. Familial dilated cardiomyopathy**

## **5.1 Inheritance patterns**

Most genetic mutations that cause familial DCM have an autosomal dominant inheritance pattern with variable penetrance [22]. However, autosomal recessive, X-linked recessive and mitochondrial inheritance patterns have been described [22]. Sometimes a mutation is found that does not occur in any of the parents, this is called a *de novo* mutation.
