Molecular Cardiology

Heart failure represents a major cause of morbidity and mortality in western countries. The term cardiokine has recently emerged to describe proteins secreted from the heart that have autocrine, paracrine and/or endocrine functions crucial for the maintenance of cardiac function. Because of their extracellular localization, secreted cardiokines, show promise as therapeutic targets or agents and could have important prognostic implications as potential biomarkers for cardiac disorders. We recently identified for the first time the endocrine factor fibroblast growth factor-21 (FGF21) as a new cardiokine, expressed and secreted by the heart with protective autocrine functions. Accordingly, the main research line of the group is to identify new cardiokines and to elucidate their effects in cardiac disease models in order to identify new therapeutic agents and/or new clinical biomarkers for cardiac disorders.

In our laboratory, we combine studies in vitro using primary culture of neonatal cardiomyocytes and in vivo in mice using several models of gain (cardiac specific adenoviral vectors overexpressing the selected cardiokines (AAV9) and loss of function (genetic invalidation using the Cre-Lox system-cardiac specific). Moreover our group has developed fruitful collaborations with national cardiology groups: Dr. Joaquim Fernández-Solà, Hospital Clínic (Barcelona) and Dr. Antoni Bayes-Genis, Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol (Badalona) that provide us with several human cardiac samples and blood samples from patients suffering from cardiac disease. The combination of all these in vitro and in vivo approaches and the human studies provides us with a basic but also a translational model to gain insight into prognostic and preventive mechanisms in cardiac disease.

Currently our group is supported by the Ramon y Cajal program, SAF2014-55702-JIN (Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades), Fundació La Marató de TV3 and Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC).