Comprehensive analysis of atrial gene expression in atrial fibrillation

 
CARIM AF researchers (Kevin Vernooy, Dominik Linz, Uli Schotten) are currently running large AF consortia (the EU consortium MAESTRIA and the Dutch Heart Foundation consortium EmbRACE) that are unravelling the biological mechanisms and prognostic value of atrial cardiomyopathy. The backbone of these investigations is a combination of atrial transcriptomics and large-scale histological studies linked to thorough clinical phenotyping of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Under the supervision of Monika Stoll and Uli Schotten, researchers at the Dept. of Physiology performed a next generation RNA sequencing study in atrial tissue samples in >200 patients enrolled in 5 European centres.
 
Stef Zeemering, Aaron Isaacs, Joris Winters and Uli Schotten received this year’s Joan and Douglas Zipes Publication of the Year Award 2024 in Heart Rhythm at the Heart Rhythm Society Meeting in Boston (16-19.5.2024) for their article “Atrial fibrillation in the presence and absence of heart failure enhances expression of genes involved in cardiomyocyte structure, conduction properties, fibrosis, inflammation, and endothelial dysfunction.”  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36007727/
 
The article describes gene expression alterations in patients with AF and how it is modulated by heart failure. It also gives first insights into disease-specific exon usage and clusters of co-expressed genes and thereby paves the way for multiple mechanistic validation studies to be undertaken in the context of EmbRACE.
 
Congratulations particularly to the co-first-authors Stef Zeemering, Aaron Isaacs, and Joris Winters.