Restoring heart function and electrical integrity: closing the circuit.
review · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 29302345.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41536-017-0015-2 and PMC identifier 5665620.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases are the main cause of death in the world and are often associated with the occurrence of arrhythmias due to disruption of myocardial electrical integrity. Pathologies involving dysfunction of the specialized cardiac excitatory/conductive tissue are also common and constitute an added source of morbidity and mortality since current standard therapies withstand a great number of limitations. As electrical integrity is essential for a well-functioning heart, innovative strategies have been bioengineered to improve heart conduction and/or promote myocardial repair, based on: (1) gene and/or cell delivery; or (2) conductive biomaterials as tools for cardiac tissue engineering. Herein we aim to review the <i>state-of-art</i> in the area, while briefly describing the biological principles underlying the heart electrical/conduction system and how this system can be disrupted in heart disease. Suggestions regarding targets for future studies are also presented.