Rubella myopericarditis and cardiac tamponade: a case report.

A 20-year-old male patient with ulcerative proctitis presented with a fever and chest pain. He was diagnosed with rubella-associated myopericarditis due to pericardial rub, elevated troponin I, ST elevation, and positive rubella-immunoglobulin M. The patient subsequently developed cardiac tamponade but responded well to pericardial drainage and antiinflammatory therapy.

Structural analysis of four and half LIM protein-2 in dilated cardiomyopathy.

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a cardiac disease characterized by dilated ventricle and systolic dysfunction. Most of the DCM patients are sporadic cases, but a certain population of DCM patients can be familial cases caused by mutations in genes for sarcomere/Z-disc components including titin/connectin. However, disease-causing mutations could be identified only in a part of the familial DCM patients, suggesting that there should be other disease causing genes for DCM.

Functional analysis of titin/connectin N2-B mutations found in cardiomyopathy.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and dilated cardiomyopathy are two major clinical phenotypes of "idiopathic" cardiomyopathy. Recent molecular genetic analyses have now revealed that "idiopathic" cardiomyopathy is caused by mutations in genes for sarcomere components. We have recently reported several mutations in titin/connectin gene found in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or dilated cardiomyopathy.