Role of myoregulin in cardiovascular disease
Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in New Zealand, necessitating new biological markers that will aid in earlier diagnosis, treatment or prognosis. Recently, a potential untapped source of these markers has arisen from what was previously thought of as “junk DNA”, but has now been found to produce functional proteins.
This project will explore one of these novel proteins, myoregulin, which is thought to control calcium levels in muscle cells. Keeping calcium levels balanced in the heart is extremely important for normal heart functioning, thus, myoregulin may be an important regulator of heart function.
Dr Appleby is a Research Fellow in the Translational Biodiscovery Laboratory of the Christchurch Heart Institute. The major focus of my research is based on a recently discovered peptide myoregulin which is encoded from what was previously classified as long non-coding RNA. Myoregulin is thought to regulate calcium by inhibiting the intracellular calcium pump and therefore may be a crucial regulator of heart function.