Alberta Innovates- Health Solutions

Heart disease is the major cause of serious illness and death among Canadians. Increasingly sedentary lifestyles, poor eating habits, and other risk factors have contributed to a rise in the incidence of this leading killer of women and men.

Heritage researchers at the University of Alberta have gained a better understanding of some of the cellular processes that contribute to heart disease. Their findings may one day improve the chances of recovery from this debilitating condition and improve the long-term health of many heart patients.

Heritage Senior Scholar Dr. Larry Fliegel's lab studies the actions of a protein in the heart called the sodium-hydrogen exchanger (NHE1). NHE1 is important for maintaining a proper balance between acid and alkaline pH in all of our cells, and in particular the heart. AHFMR Post-doctoral Fellow Dr. Andrea Moor recently demonstrated how phosphorylation regulates the sodium-hydrogen exchanger protein in the heart. She continues to study the intricate cellular pathways involved in this regulation.

When acid builds up in the cells during ischemia (a condition that prevents oxygen from getting to the heart tissue), it activates the sodium-hydrogen exchanger. Increased sodium ions brought in to combat the pH imbalance leads to other ionic imbalances which can ultimately kill the cells and lead to further damage to the heart.

By concentrating their efforts on how this protein is regulated, researchers in Dr. Fliegel's lab hope to better understand its function and help find ways to control its action during heart disease. When heart cells die scar tissue develops instead of new muscle. If researchers can discover how to control the exchanger and prevent cell death, the heart will suffer less damage and patients will have a better chance of recovery.

Dr. Moor holds an AHFMR Post-doctoral Fellowship. She's recently won three awards: a Travel Award from the Canadian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular and Cellular Biology, an award from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and an additional award from Hoechst Marion Roussel.

Dr. Moor is supervised by Heritage Senior Scholar Dr. Larry Fliegel. Dr. Fliegel receives additional support from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. He is a member of the MRC Group in Molecular Biology of Membranes.