Developing better ways to detect heart failure

Investigating the role of Tetranectin in cardiac remodelling and its utility as a heart failure biomarker

Heart failure is a serious condition where the heart is unable to pump blood efficiently around the body. We urgently need to better understand the mechanisms of heart failure and to develop better screening tools to detect and manage this condition. Dr Chris Watson and his team have measured approximately a thousand molecules found in the heart of patients at risk of developing heart failure. They identified that the levels of a molecule called tetranectin were significantly reduced in the blood of patients with increased risk of developing heart failure. Dr Watson and his team think that tetranectin is linked to the process of cardiac remodelling. This is when scar tissue forms in the heart following injury – for example after a heart attack – reducing its function and leading to heart failure. In this project, they will use mice that lack the tetranectin molecule, to understand whether it has a protective or negative role in the development of heart failure. They will also look at whether the marker is present in blood samples from patients with heart failure. This will help us better understand if it is an accurate marker of heart failure, laying the groundwork for turning it into an effective diagnostic test.