Online Seminar - Calcium imaging in cardiomyocytes in general, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in particular

In 1947 Heilbrunn & Wiercinski established that calcium was the ion that triggered contraction in muscle. Efforts to measure calcium in the cardiovascular system have continuously been developed since then in healthy and diseased states [reviewed in Broyles et al, 2018, PMID 29857560]

We are interested in the changes in intracellular calcium that occur in a common inherited cardiac condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, that affects about 1:250-500 people and is a leading cause of sudden death in apparently well, young, adults. Both contractility, and calcium are abnormal in this condition, but there are clear discrepancies between the two measurements - contracility measurements are abnormal throughout the contractile cycle; calcium measurements are apparently only abnormal during diastole.

In unpublished work that I will discuss we are able to reconcile this observation, and overcome the problem of calcium and contractile measurement using genetically encoded calcium indicators that we are able to bury into the sarcomere adjacent to where we know the mutations that cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy are found [Sparrow et al, 2019, PMID 30732532; Sparrow et al 2020, PMID 32083971]

I will discuss some modifications that allow us to measure calcium and contractility simultaneously in the single IPS-CM model.

This seminar will be given online via Zoom. Details in attached poster.