Advances in the study of arrhythmogenic mechanisms / 国际药学研究杂志

ABSTRACT

Arrhythmia is a common complication of cardiovascular diseases and a risk factor for human health. Especially, ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation may not only exacerbate original heart diseases, but also cause cardiac sudden death which has been an mportant death reason in China. However, anti-arrhythmic drugs nowadays cannot effectively treat these arrhythmias, with an efficiency of only 30%-60%, which indicates that our knowledge about arrhythmias is limited. Hence, to explore the potential mechanism, look for novel targets, and develop drugs with multiple-channel action are the focus of the research direction. Recent studies displayed that the atrial-specific potassium channels such as IKur and IKAch were involved in atrial fibrillation, which provided a prospective target for atrial fibrillation treatment. Calcium leak, gap junction protein and autoantibody against ICaL channel were shown to participate in arrhythmogenesis. These findings provided a theoretical basis for the development of more effective anti-arrhythmic drugs. Remarkably, as a kind of mportant RNA regulating gene expression, microRNA (miRNA) was shown to possess anti-arrhythmic activities which may prevent cardiac sudden death. miR-1, miR-133 and miR-590 regulated the arrhythmia in various types of animal models. Because of the multiple-gene regulation actions of miRNA, it has the potential to be developed as novel anti-arrhythmic target.