Essential Role of the RIα Subunit of cAMP-Dependent Protein Kinase in Regulating Cardiac Contractility and Heart Failure Development.

Background: The heart expresses 2 main subtypes of cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA; type I and II) that differ in their regulatory subunits, RIα and RIIα. Embryonic lethality of RIα knockout mice limits the current understanding of type I PKA function in the myocardium. The objective of this study was to test the role of RIα in adult heart contractility and pathological remodeling.

Two-pore channels (TPCs) acts as a hub for excitation-contraction coupling, metabolism and cardiac hypertrophy signalling.

Ca signaling is essential for cardiac contractility and excitability in heart function and remodeling. Intriguingly, little is known about the role of a new family of ion channels, the endo-lysosomal non-selective cation "two-pore channel" (TPCs) in heart function. Here we have used double TPC knock-out mice for the 1 and 2 isoforms of TPCs (Tpcn1/2) and evaluated their cardiac function.

Fast gradient algorithm for complex ICA and its application to the MIMO systems.

This paper proposes a new gradient-descent algorithm for complex independent component analysis and presents its application to the Multiple-Input Multiple-Output communication systems. Algorithm uses the Lie structure of optimization landscape and toral decomposition of gradient matrix. The theoretical results are validated by computer simulation and compared to several classes of algorithms, gradient descent, quasi-Newton as well as complex JADE.

Human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes as an electrophysiological model: Opportunities and challenges-The Hamburg perspective.

Models based on human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CM) are proposed in almost any field of physiology and pharmacology. The development of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes is expected to become a step forward to increase the translational power of cardiovascular research. Importantly they should allow to study genetic effects on an electrophysiological background close to the human situation.

Phosphodiesterases type 2, 3 and 4 promote vascular tone in mesenteric arteries from rats with heart failure.

Phosphodiesterases (PDE) type 3 and 4 promote vasoconstriction by hydrolysing cAMP. In experimental heart failure (HF), PDE3 makes PDE4 redundant in aorta, but it is not known if this occurs in resistance vessels, such as mesenteric artery. As PDE2 is increased in the failing myocardium, its possible role in the vasculature also needs to be addressed.