Authors: Joseph A Hill
Publish Date: 2011/01/20
Volume: 32, Issue: 3, Pages: 282-289
Abstract
The heart is a highly plastic organ In response to the physiological stress of normal life as well as the pathological stress of disease the myocardium manifests robust and rapid changes in mass In the context of diseaseassociated stress this myocardial remodeling response can culminate in ventricular thinning mechanical dysfunction and a clinical syndrome of heart failure Recently autophagy a process of cellular cannibalization has been implicated in many of these remodeling reactions In some settings the autophagic response is beneficial and prosurvival in other contexts it is maladaptive and promotes disease progression Together these observations raise the intriguing prospect of targeting maladaptive autophagy and advancing cell survivalpromoting adaptive autophagy to benefit patients with heart diseaseWe are grateful to members of the Hill laboratory for valuable suggestions and comments This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health NIH Grants No HL075173 HL080144 and HL090842 The American Heart Association AHA Grant No 0640084N and the AHA—Jon Holden DeHaan Foundation
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