Fellow authors and colleagues gathered together last month to celebrate Long-Sheng Song, MD, Professor in Cardiovascular Medicine, and his study’s publication in Science’s online platform. Dr. Song’s publication revealed that the fragmentation of the protein junctophilin-2 can regulate genes and prevent heart failure following cardiovascular stress.
“We have long known that this protein is a structural protein, important for muscle function, but we never expected it to also have this ability to regulate gene expression,” Song said. “These findings reveal a previously unknown self-protective mechanism that heart muscle cells possess to counter the damaging effects following cardiac stress.”
Science is the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s academic journal, which is one of the leading academic journals in the world.
University of Iowa researchers and authors on this project include Dr. Ang Guo, Yihui Wang, Biyi Chen, Yunhao Wang, Jinxiang Yuan, Liyang Zhang, Dr. Duane Hall, Jennifer Wu, Yun Shi, Qi Zhu, Cheng Chen, Dr. William Thiel, Xin Zhan, Dr. Robert Weiss, Dr. Fenghuang Zhan, Catherine Musselman, Miles Pufall, Kin Fai Au, and Dr. Chad Grueter. Dr. Mark E. Anderson of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Jiang Hong of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and Weizhong Zhu of Nantong University School of Pharmacy also helped assemble this research. “This is a masterpiece of teamwork and collaborations,” Dr. Song said. “Without the selfless and diligent work from many groups within and outside the [University of Iowa] campus, I doubt we could have made it into Science.”
Dr. Song’s team’s research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the American Heart Association.