New genetic cause of cardiac failure discovered
Over the course of a lifetime, the heart pumps some 250 million litres of blood through the body. In the order to do this, the muscle fibres of the heart have to be extremely durable. The research group headed by Dr Wolfgang Rottbauer, vice chair of the Department of Medicine III at Heidelberg University Hospital (Chairman: Prof. Dr H. A. Katus), has discovered a protein that is responsible for the stability of the smallest muscular unit, the sarcomere. In cooperation with other researchers within the National Genome Research Network (NGFN) which is funded by the German Federal Ministery of Education and Research, especially Prof. Dr H. Schunkert from the University of Luebeck and Prof. Dr M. Stoll from the University of Muenster, they proved that mutations of this protein are the cause of a new type of heart failure. The results have been published in the November issue of Nature...