Signal transduction in cardiac hypertrophy--dissecting compensatory versus pathological pathways utilizing a transgenic approach.

Targeted and regulated genetic manipulation, physiological intervention to introduce biomechanical stress and injury, sophisticated measurement of cardiac function in transgenic heart at whole organ and cellular level, and the molecular/biochemical/genomic analysis of signaling pathways in cardiomyocytes represent the most significant advances in recent years in this field. Such progress has helped make inroads into understanding the molecular mechanism of cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure. Delineating intracellular signaling pathways involved in the different aspects of cardiac hypertrophy and remodeling will have significant implications in drug development for heart failure.