Myopalladin's role in cardiac muscle function and disease

Decades of research have provided fundamental insight into the human heart’s structure and function. Yet, most cardiac malformations remain a mystery as scientists and clinicians continue to examine how inherited mutations and aging affect the normal biological functions of proteins associated with cardiac dysfunction. Recently, mutations in the muscle protein myopalladin have been linked to the pathogenesis of cardiomyopathy. Myopalladin is a sarcomeric protein that is thought to have an important role in maintaining sarcomere structure, signaling and regulation of gene expression in response to muscle stress. Myopalladin and palladin belong to a family of closely related immunoglobulin (Ig)-domain-containing proteins that have essential, but unclear roles in organizing the actin cytoskeleton. Recent work in the Beck lab has shown that the C-terminal Ig domains of palladin bind directly to actin and increases both the rate of actin polymerization and the stability of actin filaments. The fact that a numb...