Publications by authors named "Mao-Tsuen Jeng"

Article Synopsis
  • The authors explore how technology can improve personalized medicine by predicting drug-induced heart rhythm issues using advanced modeling techniques.
  • They utilize structural models to understand how drugs interact with cardiac ion channels and simulate their effects on heart cells derived from stem cells.
  • Their method effectively forecasts drug impacts on heart tissue, proving to be efficient and cost-effective for tailoring medication to individuals.
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Cardiac function is tightly regulated by the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Activation of the sympathetic nervous system increases cardiac output by increasing heart rate and stroke volume, while parasympathetic nerve stimulation instantly slows heart rate. Importantly, imbalance in autonomic control of the heart has been implicated in the development of arrhythmias and heart failure.

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Article Synopsis
  • Drug isomers can have different levels of risk for causing irregular heart rhythms, as seen with the antiarrhythmic drug sotalol, which contains d- and l- enantiomers.
  • Using a combination of simulations and experiments, researchers studied how these enantiomers interact with the hERG cardiac potassium channel and found that both have similar binding strengths.
  • The findings were used to create detailed models of heart function, helping to explain why d-sotalol has a higher risk of proarrhythmia compared to l-sotalol, particularly when considering their effects on beta-adrenergic receptors.
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Rationale: Drug-induced proarrhythmia is so tightly associated with prolongation of the QT interval that QT prolongation is an accepted surrogate marker for arrhythmia. But QT interval is too sensitive a marker and not selective, resulting in many useful drugs eliminated in drug discovery.

Objective: To predict the impact of a drug from the drug chemistry on the cardiac rhythm.

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Multi-scale computational modeling is a major branch of computational biology as evidenced by the US federal interagency Multi-Scale Modeling Consortium and major international projects. It invariably involves specific and detailed sequences of data analysis and simulation, often with multiple tools and datasets, and the community recognizes improved modularity, reuse, reproducibility, portability and scalability as critical unmet needs in this area. Scientific workflows are a well-recognized strategy for addressing these needs in scientific computing.

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Key Points: This study represents a first step toward predicting mechanisms of sex-based arrhythmias that may lead to important developments in risk stratification and may inform future drug design and screening. We undertook simulations to reveal the conditions (i.e.

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Subcellular compartmentation of the ubiquitous second messenger cAMP has been widely proposed as a mechanism to explain unique receptor-dependent functional responses. How exactly compartmentation is achieved, however, has remained a mystery for more than 40 years. In this study, we developed computational and mathematical models to represent a subcellular sarcomeric space in a cardiac myocyte with varying detail.

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The mechanism of therapeutic efficacy of flecainide for catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT) is unclear. Model predictions suggest that Na(+) channel effects are insufficient to explain flecainide efficacy in CPVT. This study represents a first step toward predicting therapeutic mechanisms of drug efficacy in the setting of CPVT and then using these mechanisms to guide modelling and simulation to predict alternative drug therapies.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers aim to create drugs to manage diseases of excitability, particularly focusing on cardiac arrhythmia, a disorder linked to disordered electrical impulses in the heart that can lead to sudden death.
  • Traditional pharmacological approaches have struggled due to the unpredictable interactions of drugs with cardiac ion channels and their effects on heart electrical behavior.
  • A new computational model, validated with experimental data, simulates drug interactions and predicts that at certain concentrations, the anti-arrhythmic drugs flecainide and lidocaine may worsen arrhythmia, paving the way for a virtual drug-screening system for heart treatments.
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