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Revisiting calcineurin and human heart failure

Nature Medicine volume 6, pages 2–3 (2000)Cite this article

To the Editor

Calcineurin, a calcium-dependent phosphatase regulated by calmodulins, has been implicated in a signaling pathway in animal models in which activated calmodulincalcineurin complexes dephosphorylate specific nuclear regulators, leading to cardiac hypertrophy1. Calcineurin may be involved in human heart failure in which chronic increases in intracellular calcium activate phosphatase-mediated signaling2. So far, direct assessment of calcineurin activity in human cardiac tissue has been difficult, as the available enzymatic assays may not provide an accurate measure of calcineurin activity in vivo.

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Figure 1: a, Shift in calmodulin-associated CnA isoforms in the failing human left ventricle.

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Acknowledgements

We thank G.W. Dec and R. Hajjar of the Massachusetts general Hospital Cardiac Transplant Unit for sharing frozen tissue samples. This work was supported by a grant to N.R. from the National Institute on Aging and a training fellowship to L.T. from the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cardiovascular Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital-East and Harvard Medical School, 149 East 13th Street, 4th Floor, Charlestown, 02129, Massachusetts, USA

    Lana Tsao, Craig Neville, Antonio Musaro, Karl J.A. McCullagh & Nadia Rosenthal

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  1. Lana Tsao
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  2. Craig Neville
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  3. Antonio Musaro
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  4. Karl J.A. McCullagh
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  5. Nadia Rosenthal
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Tsao, L., Neville, C., Musaro, A. et al. Revisiting calcineurin and human heart failure. Nat Med 6, 2–3 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/71478

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