Targeting heart muscle motors to treat heart failure

Cardiac thick filament modulators: A potential new class of heart failure therapeutics

In the search for new heart failure treatments, scientists have been studying the tiny muscle motors of heart cells that cause them to relax and contract. These motors are made up of two types of miniscule filaments – thick and thin – that work together to cause muscle contraction. Most research to develop drugs for heart failure in the past has focused on the thin filaments. But recent research suggests that the search for better drugs for heart failure should now include targeting the thick filaments. Unfortunately, less is known about how those thick filaments function normally, and there has been no efficient way to test for drugs that affect them. It has been recently shown that thick filaments can be switched on and off. In this project, Dr Kampourakis and his team will exploit this knowledge to develop a new high-speed method of searching for potential drugs that affect the thick filaments. Using fluorescent labels attached to portions of the thick filaments, they will look for drugs that affect whether the filaments are switched on or off. Drugs that look promising will then be studied further in isolated heart muscle tissue, to look at their effects on muscle contraction. Drugs discovered in this project could potentially treat heart failure in the future.