From Fifth Business to Protagonist: the complex roles of ion channel anchors in cardiac arrhythmia.

Proper regulation of cardiac ion channel activity is critical for cellular ion homeostasis and myocyte electrical activity. Recent work has demonstrated that cardiac ion channels are not isolated pores in plasmid membranes, but rather exist within macromolecular signaling complexes. Moreover, within these macro-complexes resides the machinery to finely tune ion channel expression, activity, and signaling. While it is widely-accepted that mutations in ion channel pore-forming genes underlie a number of cardiac arrhythmias, current research is now focusing on the roles of auxiliary subunits in the development of arrhythmia syndromes.