Grant: Operating Grant

The endocardial endothelium is a monolayer of hormone secreting cells that line the cavities of the heart. It has a strategic localization between the circulating blood and the cardiac contractile muscle. It was reported that dysfunction of the endocardial endothelium is 100% implicated in many cardiac diseases such as hypertrophy and heart failure which leads to sudden death. Recently, our group clearly showed that endocardial endothelial cells release various hormones towards the cardiac contracting cells and alter their function. In addition, our group demonstrated that these special types of cells also secrete a neuronal hormone called neuropeptide Y. The goal of this proposal is to test the general hypothesis that endocardial endothelial cells secrete a neuronal hormone neuropeptide Y which in turn triggers the secretion of an important hormone endothelin-1. This secreted hormone will promote the development of heart diseases such as cardiac hypertrophy. Thus, this work will help to better understand the normal and pathological roles that endocardial endothelial cells play in cardiac diseases such as arrhythmia, hypertrophy and other heart diseases. Such knowledge will help to develop drugs that target endocardial endothelial cells in order to better control their abnormal secretion of cardiac hormones.