title: How cardiomyocytes sense pathophysiological stresses for cardiac remodeling.
abstract: In the past decades, the cardiovascular community has laid out the fundamental signaling cascades that become awry in the cardiomyocyte during the process of pathologic cardiac remodeling. These pathways are initiated at the cell membrane and work their way to the nucleus to mediate gene expression. Complexity is multiplied as the cardiomyocyte is subjected to cross talk with other cells as well as a barrage of extracellular stimuli and mechanical stresses. In this review, we summarize the signaling cascades that play key roles in cardiac function and then we proceed to describe emerging concepts of how the cardiomyocyte senses the mechanical and environmental stimuli to transition to the deleterious genetic program that defines pathologic cardiac remodeling. As a highlighting example of these processes, we illustrate the transition from a compensated hypertrophied myocardium to a decompensated failing myocardium, which is clinically manifested as decompensated heart failure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 1260 John F. Enders Research Bldg, 320 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. zhaque01@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Zaffar K
authors.initials: ZK
authors.lastname: Haque
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 1260 John F. Enders Research Bldg, 320 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, USA.
authors.forename: Da-Zhi
authors.initials: DZ
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006332:Cardiomegaly / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D032383:Myocytes, Cardiac / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D015398:Signal Transduction; D013312:Stress, Physiological; D020257:Ventricular Remodeling
keywords: Cardiomyopathy; Gene expression; Heart failure; MicroRNAs; Signaling pathway; Transcription