Breakthrough St Vincent’s Precinct study sheds light on treatment of hypertrophy

17 Jun 2022

Researchers from the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute have identified an important new mechanism that causes the heart’s muscle to thicken – a process called cardiac hypertrophy - that markedly increases the risk of heart failure and premature death.

Professor Michael Feneley, Director of Cardiology at St Vincent’s Hospital and joint senior author of the study with Professor Boris Martinac from the Institute, said the findings published in Nature Cardiovascular Research were a major breakthrough in our understanding of one of the main drivers of heart disease.

“Cardiac hypertrophy is a major risk factor for heart failure and premature cardiac death,” said Professor Feneley.

“We have finally been able to pinpoint the protein, Piezo1, that initiates the thickening of the heart muscle wall in response to increased blood pressure.”

Cardiac hypertrophy is caused by many common conditions, including high blood pressure (hypertension) and narrowing of one of the heart valves (aortic stenosis).

The new paper is the third in a series of papers published by Professors Feneley, Martinac and Charles Cox and their research collaborators in the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute that together map out the molecular communication pathways that explain how an increase in pressure within the heart results in heart wall thickening. “For our research group, it is the culmination of 15 years of research work on cardiac hypertrophy, and a wonderful example of research collaboration between several laboratories on our campus,” Professor Feneley said.

The discovery paves the way to develop new drugs that will stop these molecules from ‘talking’ to each other with the aim of preventing the heart muscle from thickening in the first place or stopping further thickening in those already affected.

Currently there are few therapeutic options for severe hypertrophy. The traditional approaches include lowering the patients’ blood pressure or replacing a stenotic aortic valve, neither of which can totally reverse the damage caused by hypertrophy.

“Drugs that prevent hypertrophy could make a huge inroad into reducing the number of people affected by heart disease and save many lives in the future,” said Professor Feneley.

The same team at the Institute is also exploring how this discovery could help with the recovery of heart attack victims. “When someone has a heart attack, many of their muscle cells will die and the surviving heart muscle undergoes hypertrophy. A drug that halted this process might be beneficial in preventing heart failure and deaths in patients after a heart attack, but it is still early days in our research,” said Professor Feneley.

Professor Michael Feneley

Photo courtesy of The Daily Telegraph.