Grant: Operating Grant

The diabetic heart uses fatty acid exclusively as an energy resource for maintaining its activities. How the heart switches from using glucose to fatty acid is a swift and sophisticated process. Lipoprotein lipase (LPL) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) are considered to play important roles in this metabolic switching, with LPL providing these fats and VEGF helping with transport. In this proposal, we have designed experiments to examine how the endothelial cell, a "first-responder" to hyperglycemia (by secreting heparanase), communicates with the underlying cardiomyocyte (which releases LPL and VEGF). As this cross-talk is expected to facilitate increased FA delivery to, and utilization by, the cardiomyocyte, data obtained from these studies should assist in devising new therapeutic strategies to prevent or delay diabetic heart disease.