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Nature Medicine 14, 244 - 245 (2008)
doi:10.1038/nm0308-244

The weakness of a big heart

Thomas Force1

  1. Thomas Force is in the Center for Translational Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University, College Building, Rm. 316, 1025 Walnut St., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107, USA. e-mail: thomas.force@jefferson.edu


A well-known cell cycle regulator, p27KIP1, and protein kinase CK2-alpha´ mediate pathologic growth of cardiomyocytes. The findings have potential implications for the development of new treatment approaches to cardiac hypertrophy (pages 315–324).


Heart failure is often accompanied by enlargement of the heart (hypertrophy), as the organ strains to perform its task despite being damaged. Cell enlargement, rather than proliferation, accounts for this hypertrophy, because cardiomyocytes are terminally differentiated.

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