Promising target in treating and preventing the progression of heart failure identified

Wednesday, September 7, 2011 - 12:31 in Health & Medicine

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have identified a new drug target that may treat and/or prevent heart failure. The team evaluated failing human and pig hearts and discovered that SUMO1, a so-called "chaperone" protein that regulates the activity of key transporter genes, was decreased in failing hearts. When the researchers injected SUMO1 into these hearts via gene therapy, cardiac function was significantly improved. This research indicates that SUMO1 may play a critical role in the pathogenesis of heart failure. The data are published online in Nature.

Read the whole article on Physorg

More from Physorg

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net