Volume 17 Issue 5, May 2020

Awareness of the effect of the neighbourhood built environment on cardiovascular diseases is growing. In this Comment, we identify major conceptual, methodological and policy-relevant issues in research related to the built environment and describe potential future directions to improve the scientific rigour of research in this field.

A novel metabolite derived from gut microbiota has been shown to promote platelet hyper-responsiveness and modulate platelet function via adrenergic receptors, contributing to increased thrombotic risk.

A surgical mouse model of recurrent myocardial infarction (MI) developed by inducing two sequential MIs in different regions of the same mouse revealed that haematopoietic and innate immune responses are shaped by a preceding MI.

Inhibition of fatty acid metabolism to promote oxidation of glycolysis-derived pyruvate promotes cardiomyocyte proliferation and improves left ventricular function after myocardial infarction.

Macrophages directly contribute collagen to scar formation as part of heart regeneration in zebrafish and heart repair in mice; this finding develops the current paradigm of collagen deposition for scar formation being generated exclusively via macrophage-mediated activation of cardiac fibroblasts to myofibroblasts.

Inflammation has an important role in the pathogenesis of acute and chronic heart failure. This Review summarizes the latest findings on the role of the innate and adaptive immune systems in the pathogenesis of heart failure, and highlights the results of phase III clinical trials of therapies targeting inflammatory processes in this condition, such as anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory strategies.

In this Review, Rosenbaum and colleagues give a broad perspective on the genetic causes of dilated cardiomyopathy to provide a context for a discussion of the pragmatic use of genetic testing in heart failure clinics for patients presenting with new-onset dilated cardiomyopathy.

In this Consensus Statement, Garg and colleagues describe the current evidence on the use of cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging for the assessment of mitral regurgitation, highlight its current clinical utility, and recommend a standardized imaging protocol and report.