Translational Cardiovascular Research Center - News and Highlights

Center Highlights

• Congratulations to Dr. Taben Hale and collaborators Dr. Jill Goldstein (Harvard University) and Dr. Robert Handa (Colorado State University) as they were awarded an $8 million dollar NIH grant to study the impact of prenatal stress on the long-term risk of co-morbid depression and heart disease in offspring. https://phoenixmed.arizona.edu/newsroom/news/researchers-awarded-8-million-grant-study-depression-and-cardiovascular-disease

• Congratulations to Dr. Erik Blackwood on his recent receipt of a University of Arizona Post-doctoral Research Development Grant.  Learn more about Dr. Blackwood and what he will use the grant for at the following link: https://postdoc.arizona.edu/news/congratulations-2021-postdoctoral-research-development-grant-prdg-awardees

• Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine — section Heart Failure and Transplantation — just launched the research topic entitled “Edema in Heart Failure with Reduced Ejection Fraction.” Inna Gladysheva, PhD and Ryan D. Sullivan, DVM, LATG, from the TCRC, along with Pierpaolo Pellicori, MD, from the University of Glasgow are serving as guest editors. The goal of this topic is to present and evaluate the mechanisms underlying edema development, which defines the transition from pre-symptomatic to symptomatic heart failure. Original research, reviews and short communications exploring existing and novel modalities for objective edema diagnostics, monitoring and treatment strategies in translational and clinical studies are encouraged for submission. The deadline for an abstract is November 30, 2021; for an invited manuscript, it is March 31, 2022.

• 

  June 10, 2021 – We are happy and honored to announce that Roderick Tung, MD, has been named chief of the Division of Cardiology and director of Cardiovascular Clinical Research for the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix and Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix. He will also serve as the director of the Cardiovascular Center at Banner – UMC Phoenix. Dr. Tung is an electrophysiologist and is keenly interested in translational cardiovascular research in many areas, such as ventricular tachycardia and atrial fibrillation. We welcome Dr. Tung as an inaugural member of the Translational Cardiovascular Research Center (TCRC) and look forward to many research collaborations in the future.

• In April 2021, the center unveiled the cornerstone pieces of equipment in the TCRC Imaging Lab, a Leica TCS SP8 STED super-resolution confocal with white light laser, FALCON/FLIM, and Tau Sense, and a Leica DMi8 S Infinity THUNDER with TIRF module equipped with a stage top incubation chamber for live-cell imaging.

• 

  March 2021, saw the center welcome its two newest faculty members — Drs. Tobias Jakobi and Shirin Doroudgar. Drs. Doroudgar and Jakobi come to us from one of the largest, most famous universities in Europe — the University of Heidelberg Medical School in Heidelberg, Germany. They have expertise in cell and molecular cardiology, as well as bioinformatics; and they will play key roles in overseeing the clinical stem cell lab and the precision medicine translational data management systems in the center.

Recent Publications

• In the June 2021 issue of the American Journal of Physiology, Trevor Wendt and Rayna Gonzales published a peer-reviewed research paper titled “Ozanimod, an S1PR 1 ligand, attenuates hypoxia plus glucose deprivation-induced autophagic flux and phenotypic switching in human brain VSM cells." This paper makes an important link between the sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor (S1PR) and the protection of vascular smooth muscle cells in CNS vasculature which could lead to improved treatments for stroke.

• In the May 18, 2021 issue of Circulation, Alina Bilal, Erik Blackwood, Donna Thuerauf, and Chris Glembotski published a peer-reviewed research paper titled “Optimizing Adeno-Associated Virus Serotype 9 for Studies of Cardiac Chamber–Specific Gene Regulation." The paper describes a new method for regulating gene expression of a chamber-specific manner in the hearts of experimental animals.

• In the May 2021 issue of the American Journal of Physiology, Kayleigh Marsh, Adrian Arrieta, Donna Thuerauf, Erik Blackwood, Lauren MacDonnell, and Chris Glembotski published a peer-reviewed research paper titled “The peroxisomal enzyme, FAR1, is induced during ER stress in an ATF6-dependent manner in cardiac myocytes.” This paper is one of the first studies of peroxisomes in cardiac myocytes and makes the link between ER stress in the heart and its effects on the function of peroxisomes.>

• In the April 2021 issue of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences (Special Issue Heart Failure: From Molecular Basis to Therapy.2.0), Ranjana Tripathi, Ryan Sullivan, Tai-Hwang Fan, Radhika Mehta, Inna Gladysheva, and Guy Reed published a peer-review translational research paper titled “A Low-Sodium Diet Boosts Ang (1–7) Production and NO-cGMP Bioavailability to Reduce Edema and Enhance Survival in Experimental Heart Failure”. This paper reports the pathophysiological outcomes (cardiac function, pulmonary and systemic edema, blood pressure, kidney function, survival) and underlining mechanisms of low-sodium diet on the progression of experimental normotensive dilated cardiomyopathy to symptomatic HFrEF in randomized, blinded pre-clinical trial. The beneficial molecular pathways related outcomes of the low-sodium diet included increases in ACE2, Ang (1–7), NO and cGMP, which acted to compensate for the deleterious effects of systemic classical RAAS activation observed with this diet.

• In the January 2021 issue of Hypertension, Alexandra M. Garvin, Matthew D. De Both, Joshua S. Talboom, Merry L. Lindsey, Matthew J. Huentelman and Taben M. Hale published a peer-reviewed research paper titled, “Transient ACE (Angiotensin-Convertine Enzyme) Inhibition Suppresses Future Fibrogenic Capacity and Heterogeneity of Cardiac Fibroblast Subpopulations.” This paper reveals a shift in the resident cardiac fibroblasts toward a lower activation and less fibrogenic state that persists even after stopping angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor treatment in hypertensive rats.
   
• In the July 2020 issue of the International Journal of Molecular Sciences (Special Issue – Genetics and Molecular Pathogenesis of Non-ischemic Cardiomyopathies), Ranjana Tripathi, Ryan D. Sullivan, Tai-Hwang Fan, Radhika Mehta, Inna Gladysheva, and Guy Reed published a peer-reviewed translational research paper titled "In Experimental Dilated Cardiomyopathy Heart Failure and Survival Are Adversely Affected by a Lack of Sexual Interactions”. The paper reports that lifestyle and behavioral activities, in particular sexual activity, modifies cardiac contractile gene expression and has significant positive effects on cardiac function and heart failure pathophysiological outcomes in pre-clinical randomized, blinded, controlled trial.

• In the June 14, 2020, issue of the JoVE Journal Biology, Erik Blackwood, Alina Bilal, Khalid Azizi, Anup Saaraki, and Chris Glembotski published a methods video titled “Simultaneous Isolation and Culture of Atrial Myocytes, Ventricular Myocytes, and Non-Myocytes from an Adult Mouse Heart.” The video showcases their amazing discovery of a new technique that can be used to isolate different cell types from a single specimen heart.