title: Novel regulators and drug targets of cardiac hypertrophy.
abstract: Cardiac hypertrophy is classically considered as an adaptive and compensatory response enabling cardiomyocytes to increase their work output and thus cardiac function. Biomechanical stress and neurohumoral activation are the most important triggers of pathological hypertrophy and the transition of cardiac hypertrophy to heart failure. Several novel regulators and putative drug targets of cardiac hypertrophy have been found by using gene-modified and acquired models of cardiac hypertrophy. Recent studies have also revealed distinct patterns of cardiac substrate utilization in cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure. The use of novel systems biology techniques such as metabolomics may therefore in future provide insights into the metabolic processes and cardiovascular biology related to cardiac hypertrophy and also extend the ability to discover circulating biomarkers for cardiovascular diseases. The present review discusses current knowledge on molecular mechanisms of cardiac hypertrophy, with special emphasis on novel regulators and putative drug targets of cardiac hypertrophy such as the tissue renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, calcineurin/nuclear factor of activated T cells pathway, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/growth promoting protein kinase B, mammalian target of rapamycin, histone deacetylases, AMPkinases, microRNAs and angiogenetic factors.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedicine, University of Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Piet
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Finckenberg
authors.forename: Eero
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mervaala
mesh_terms: D055372:AMP-Activated Protein Kinases / Q000378:metabolism; D043925:Angiogenesis Inducing Agents / Q000378:metabolism; D019703:Calcineurin / Q000378:metabolism; D006332:Cardiomegaly / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000378:metabolism; D006655:Histone Deacetylases / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000378:metabolism; D012084:Renin-Angiotensin System / Q000187:drug effects*; D058570:TOR Serine-Threonine Kinases / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D043925:Angiogenesis Inducing Agents; D035683:MicroRNAs; D058570:TOR Serine-Threonine Kinases; D055372:AMP-Activated Protein Kinases; D019703:Calcineurin; D006655:Histone Deacetylases