Gabriele G. Schiattarella, Max Delbrück Center (MDC), Translational Approaches in Heart Failure and Cardiometabolic Disease LAB, Berlin, GERMANY speaks on "Molecular Underpinnings of Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction".
The prevalence of patients with chronic metabolic diseases – e.g., obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes – and with cardiovascular multi-comorbidities has been increasing steadily over the course of the last decades. Collectively termed cardiometabolic diseases (CMDs), these conditions are the number one cause of mortality, accounting for 31% of all global deaths. Chief among CMDs is the clinical syndrome of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) which affects over 5% of the general population aged ≥60 years in Europe and has become the predominant type of heart failure. Despite this, there is a lack of effective therapies to combat HFpEF, posing a fundamental challenge in cardiovascular medicine. Considering HFpEF as marked by metabolic dysfunction, we are interested in understanding how metabolic alterations contribute to the pathogenesis of HFpEF. We focus on defining, at the cellular and molecular level, how alterations in metabolism, posttranslational modifications, and protein quality control modulate cardiac function and promote pathological cardiac remodelling in HFpEF.
