How does heart metabolism become disrupted to cause diabetic cardiomyopathy

Investigating Pak2 regulation of ER stress response for maintaining cardiac metabolism under diabetic stress (Miss Namrita Kaur)

Investigating how diabetes causes a dangerous condition called diabetic cardiomyopathy. Diabetes is a major global health problem, estimated to affect more than 400 million people. The condition can double a person’s risk of developing heart and circulatory diseases. Diabetes not only increases our risk of having heart attacks and strokes through blood vessels becoming damaged, but it can also lead to diabetic cardiomyopathy. This is when the heart muscle does not work as well as before; it loses power and can’t pump blood around the body strongly enough to meet the demands of the body. The underlying mechanisms of how this happens are not yet understood, and there is no specific treatment. Fatty acids and glucose are the two main ‘fuels’ that heart muscle cells use to produce the energy they need to pump strongly. Diabetes seems to prevent the cells from using these fuels efficiently, leading to diabetic cardiomyopathy. Dr Wei Liu and her team are investigating how this change in the way the heart uses its fuel happens, so they can work towards finding a way to protect or restore it. They’ve shown that a protein called Pak2 appears to be important in helping heart muscle cells use their fuel effectively. Now they’ll begin to thoroughly investigate the role of this protein and how it’s affected by diabetes. They hope it could be a target for future medicines to prevent DCM.