Acknowledgment Dr. Abriel’s work is supported by a grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation (310030_184783) and the University of Bern. Na V 1.5 and Interacting Proteins Na V 1.5 has been shown to interact with a growing list of…
Overview of Ion Channel Trafficking in the Heart A remarkable aspect of cardiac ion channel biology is that individual ion channels have half-lives on the order of hours. For example, Cx43 gap junction proteins have a half-life of 1 to…
Excitation-Contraction Coupling and Relationship to Action Potentials Cardiac excitation-contraction coupling (ECC) is the process by which the electrical activation of cardiac myocytes leads to the activation of contraction. – In the broadest sense, ECC refers to everything from the initial…
Acknowledgments We thank Drs. S. Morel, F. Molica, and O. Rusiecka for help with the preparation of figures and critical proofreading. The work of B.R.K. is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation. Background Connexins (Cxs) and pannexins (Panxs) have…
Acknowledgments We are grateful to Professors Ursula Ravens, Alexander Quinn, and Niels Decher for helpful comments on the manuscript. We thank the European Research Council, the German Research Foundation, and the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of the…
Sudden Unexplained Death Sudden unexplained death (SUD) is defined here as the death of an individual that remains unexplained after a thorough investigation, which often includes gross and microscopic examination by the medical examiners, detailed cardiac pathology and neuropathology examinations,…
Function of the Cardiac Conduction System The electrical activity pattern of the mammalian heart, which depends on coordinated generation and propagation of action potentials, is essential for proper rhythmic contraction of the heart. Action potentials are generated and propagated by…
Introduction It has been almost 40 years since Noma first discovered adenosine triphosphate–sensitive potassium channels in cardiac muscle. Members of this channel family were found in skeletal myocytes, pancreatic β cells, neurons, vascular smooth muscle and endothelium, and lymphatic smooth…
Overview The superfamily of voltage-gated ion channels is defined by the common ability of the protein to sense transmembrane potential. Voltage-gated ion channels, specifically voltage-gated cation channels, consist of a pore-forming protein (the α-subunit) that shares the general structural plan…
Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell–Derived Cardiomyocytes for Study of Human Cardiac Electrophysiology Human Cell Model for Study of Genetics in Health and Disease The study of the human cardiac rhythm has long been limited by the study of fundamental mechanisms in the…