The role of cell death in heart failure

Non-apoptotic cell death in heart failure

In the healthy heart, muscle cells link together, forming regular structures that pull together to cause the heart to pump. In heart failure, some of these cells die; weakening the heart and making it work harder to get oxygen-rich blood to the body. This grant will enable Professor Kinya Otsu to study the role of cell death in heart failure. Professor Otsu joins a world-leading group of experts at the BHF Centre of Research Excellence at King’s College London. Under certain conditions – including heart failure – our body’s cells follow a regulated path to death, responding to signals from outside the cell. Cell death is an integral part of the body’s constant process of renewing and refreshing our tissues. However, in heart failure, too many cells die and unlike in some other organs, very few cells in our heart are naturally replaced when they die. Professor Otsu and his colleagues will investigate how heart cells die during heart failure, and the chemical signals involved. Through laboratory experiments in rodents and cultured cells, his team will try to establish the reasons for unwanted cell death, providing insights that could help lead to new treatments for heart failure. Crucially, a large part of Professor Otsu’s experiments will look at the role of two less studied types of cell death in heart failure, called necrosis and autophagy. Heart scientists tend to study a better-understood type of cell death called apoptosis but necrosis and autophagy play a major role in heart failure, and the signals that set these processes in motion are not well understood. New discoveries made with the help of this grant could lead to clues about how heart failure might be reversed, and help lead to future treatments.