dmm.biologists.org 344 The clinical problem Ischemic and non-ischemic cardiomyopathies eventually lead to left ventricular dysfunction and heart failure. Heart failure impedes quality of life, decreases life expectancy and increases medical costs dramatically, and thus constitutes a major health problem (McMurray and Pfeffer, 2005). As the population ages, the prevalence of heart failure will i...

From the Aphorisms of Hippocrates to the sports fields of the twenty-first century, by both the lay public and the medical community, the cardiomyopathies have been recognized as causes of sudden cardiac death (SCD). Prevention of SCD in the cardiomyopathies is a 2-fold challenge. First, and central to clinical practice, is the need for reliable prognostication in individuals with established d...

Coronary heart disease is frequently associated with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome and treating obstructive sleep apnea appears to significantly improve the outcome in coronary heart disease. Thus we have developed a rat model of chronic intermittent hypoxia (IH) to study the influence of this condition on myocardial ischemia-reperfusion tolerance and on functional vascular reactivity. Wista...

This study was designed to elaborate a molecular profile of expressed genes during ischemic injury to the mouse heart after surgical constriction of the left coronary artery without reperfusion. A mouse cDNA array containing 588 known genes was used to compare gene expression in heart RNA after 24-h ischemia with control tissue. Alterations in gene expression on the array were supported by rela...

Mitochondria are found in all nucleated human cells and perform various essential functions, including the generation of cellular energy. Mitochondria are under dual genome control. Only a small fraction of their proteins are encoded by mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), whereas more than 99% of them are encoded by nuclear DNA (nDNA). Mutations in mtDNA or mitochondria-related nDNA genes result in mito...

Cardiomyopathies are an important cause of congestive heart failure in the elderly, and the magnitude of the problem is compounded by changing population demographics and the frequency of congestive heart failure in the elderly. Although the data are far from complete, differences in the clinical presentations and natural history of the cardiomyopathies in older and younger patients are becomin...

p90 ribosomal S6 kinase (p90RSK) is activated in cardiomyopathies caused by conditions such as ischemia/reperfusion injury and diabetes mellitus in which prolongation of cardiac repolarization and frequent arrhythmias are common. Molecular mechanisms underlying the electric remodeling in cardiac diseases are largely unknown. In the present study, we determined the role of p90RSK activation in t...

Cardiomyopathies can result from mutations in genes encoding sarcomere proteins including MYBPC3, which encodes cardiac myosin binding protein-C (cMyBP-C). However, whether oxidative stress is augmented due to contractile dysfunction and cardiomyocyte damage in MYBPC3-mutated cardiomyopathies has not been elucidated. To determine whether oxidative stress markers were elevated in MYBPC3-mutated ...

Cardiomyopathies represent a group of diseases of the myocardium of the heart and include diseases both primarily of the cardiac muscle and systemic diseases leading to adverse effects on the heart muscle size, shape, and function. Traditionally cardiomyopathies were defined according to phenotypical appearance. Now, as our understanding of the pathophysiology of the different entities classifi...