BACKGROUND The striated muscle costamere, a multiprotein complex at the boundary between the sarcomere and the sarcolemma, plays an integral role in maintaining striated muscle structure and function. Multiple costamere-associated proteins, such as …

Cardiopulmonary complications are the leading cause of mortality in sickle cell anemia (SCA). Elevated tricuspid regurgitant jet velocity, pulmonary hypertension, diastolic, and autonomic dysfunction have all been described, but a unifying pathophysiology …

The study of the mechanisms leading to cardiac hypertro- phy is essential to better understand cardiac development and regeneration. Pathological conditions such as ischemia or pressure overload can induce a release of extracellular nucleotides within the …

Phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) inhibitors limit myocardial injury caused by stresses, including doxorubicin chemotherapy. cGMP binding to PKG I ? attenuates oxidant-induced disulfide formation. Because PDE5 inhibition elevates cGMP and pro- tects from …

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of the death worldwide. An increasing number of studies have found that autophagy is involved in the progression or prevention of CVD. However, the precise mechanism of autophagy in CVD, especially the …

Excessive cardiac interstitial fibrosis impairs normal cardiac function. We have shown that the α11β1 (α11) integrin mediates fibrotic responses to glycated collagen in rat myocardium by a pathway involving transforming growth factor-β. Little is known of …

Hyperaldosteronism is associated with an increased prevalence of atrial fibrillation (AF).Mutations in KCNE3 have been associated with AF, and Kcne32/2 mice exhibit hyperaldosteronism. In this study, we used recently developed Kcne32/2 mice to study …

Abstract Bolus injections of adenosine and the A2A adenosine receptor (AR) selective agonist (regadenoson) are used clinically as a substitute for a stress test in people who cannot exercise. Using isolated tissue preparations, our lab has shown that …

Aims: Cardiac angiogenesis is an important determinant of heart failure.We examined the hypothesis that protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTP)-1B, a negative regulator of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptor-2 activation, is caus- ally involved …

The irreversible loss of cardiomyocytes due to oxidative stress is the main cause of heart dysfunction following ischemia/reperfu- sion (I/R) injury and ageing-induced cardiomyopathy. Here, we report that CUEDC2, a CUE domain-containing protein, plays a …