New conduction patterns have been identified in the vertebrate cardiac conduction system which may lead to novel therapies for sudden cardiac arrest, according to an article released on May 12, 2008 in the open-access journal PLoS Biology, a part of the Public Library of Science family of journals.

Cardiac arrhythmia, when there is irregular electrical activity of the heart muscle, can disrupt the regular contractions to the heart, resulting in loss of consciousness and death. In the United States, 450,000 individuals die each year from this sudden cardiac death. The only proven preventive therapy for this event is the Automatic Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (AICD) which is extremely costly and puts a significant burden on the patient. Thus, further research is important to understand the cardiac conduction system, whose electrical impulses control the rhythmic beating of the heart, so novel and safer therapeutic choices may be created.

By experimenting with zebrafish, a commonly used model organism for many human diseases, Didier Stainier and colleagues showed how a cardiac-specific fluorescent calcium indicator in a transgenic line of fish to examine the cardiac conduction system more closely. Using this line, they observed four distinct physiologic cardiac conduction states, which further respond to cellular and anatomic changes of the heart early in development. Additionally, they designed a new physiologic-based forward genetic screen to identify mutants, which might have escaped identification using traditional detection methods. In conclusion, the authors are optimistic about the future development of new screening techniques and therapeutic options to help prevent sudden cardiac death in other vertebrates, such as humans.

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Genetic and physiologic dissection of the vertebrate cardiac conduction system.
Chi NC, Shaw RM, Jungblut B, Huisken J, Ferrer T, et al.
PLoS Biol 6(5): e109.
doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060109
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Written by Anna Sophia McKenney