State-of-the-Art Differentiation Protocols for Patient-Derived Cardiac Pacemaker Cells.

Human-induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes raise the possibility of generating pluripotent stem cells from a wide range of human diseases. In the cardiology field, hiPSCs have been used to address the mechanistic bases of primary arrhythmias and in investigations of drug safety. These studies have been focused primarily on atrial and ventricular pathologies.

Ryanodine receptor dysfunction causes senescence and fibrosis in Duchenne dilated cardiomyopathy.

Background: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked disorder characterized by progressive muscle weakness due to the absence of functional dystrophin. DMD patients also develop dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). We have previously shown that DMD (mdx) mice and a canine DMD model (GRMD) exhibit abnormal intracellular calcium (Ca) cycling related to early-stage pathological remodelling of the ryanodine receptor intracellular calcium release channel (RyR2) on the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) contributing to age-dependent DCM.

Heart graft preservation technics and limits: an update and perspectives.

Heart transplantation, the gold standard treatment for end-stage heart failure, is limited by heart graft shortage, justifying expansion of the donor pool. Currently, static cold storage (SCS) of hearts from donations after brainstem death remains the standard practice, but it is usually limited to 240 min. Prolonged cold ischemia and ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) have been recognized as major causes of post-transplant graft failure.