The adult heart requires baseline expression of the transcription factor Hand2 to withstand right ventricular pressure overload.

Aims: Research on the pathophysiology of right ventricular (RV) failure has, in spite of the associated high mortality and morbidity, lagged behind compared to the left ventricle (LV). Previous work from our lab revealed that the embryonic basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor heart and neural crest derivatives expressed-2 (Hand2) is re-expressed in the adult heart and activates a 'foetal gene programme' contributing to pathological cardiac remodelling under conditions of LV pressure overload. As such, ablation of cardiac expression of Hand2 conferred protection to cardiac stress and abrogated the maladaptive effects that were observed upon increased expression levels.

Clinical symptoms of right ventricular failure in experimental chronic pressure load are associated with progressive diastolic dysfunction.

Background: Right ventricular failure (RVF) due to pressure load is a major cause of death in congenital heart diseases and pulmonary hypertension. The mechanisms of RVF are unknown. We used an experimental approach based upon clinical signs of RVF to delineate functional and biological processes associated with RVF.

Identification and localization of cyanophycin in bacteria cells via imaging of the nitrogen distribution using energy-filtering transmission electron microscopy.

In this study the technique of energy-filtering transmission electron microscopy was applied to localize cyanophycin (CGP) in recombinant strains of Ralstonia eutropha. Since CGP is a polymer consisting of the amino acids aspartate and arginine, which functions as a temporary nitrogen reserve that is deposited as insoluble inclusions in the cytoplasm of the cell, its nitrogen content is significantly higher than that of the other cell matter. In this study, we recorded nitrogen distribution maps, which represent the location of CGP in ultrathin sections of resin-embedded cells of recombinant strains of R.