Michael Frisk, Christopher Le, Xin Shen, Åsmund T. Røe, Yufeng Hou, Ornella Manfra, Gustavo J.J. Silva, Isabelle van Hout, Einar S. Norden, J. Magnus Aronsen, Martin Laasmaa, Emil K.S. Espe, Fouad A. Zouein, Regis R. Lambert, Christen P. Dahl, Ivar Sjaastad, Ida G. Lunde, Sean Coffey, Alessandro Cataliotti, Lars Gullestad, Theis Tønnessen, Peter P. Jones, Raffaele Altara and William E. Louch
Heart failure is a serious condition where the ability of the heart to pump blood is reduced. This can be due to a weakening of the heart’s contraction (a condition called HFrEF), or reduced relaxation of the heart which prevents it from properly filling with blood (HFpEF). In this article, we trace the causes of these two types of heart failure to differences in the structure and function of the heart’s muscle cells. In the first type of heart failure (HFrEF), we show that the internal structure of the cells is degraded, which weakens their contraction, and thus the contraction of the whole heart. This doesn’t happen in HFpEF, where there is instead stiffening of the heart that prevents the cells from properly relaxing. We show that the causes of this stiffening depend on other diseases that may be present in the patient, such as diabetes.
Read the article in Journal of the American College of Cardiology
DOI: 10.1016/j.jacc.2020.11.044
Figure: Heart Failure With Preserved and Reduced Ejection Fraction Exhibit Distinct Changes in Cardiomyocyte T-Tubule Structure and Etiology-Dependent Impairment of Diastolic Ca2+ Homeostasis.
Journal of the American College of Cardiology
Volume 77, Issue 4, 2 February 2021, Pages 405-419
