Ca2+, Trpm2 and Mitochondria

Is calcium entry into the heart via Trpm2 channels critical for maintaining cardiomyocyte bioenergetics and function? Listen as Associate Editor Ronglih Liao (Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School) interviews senior author Joseph Cheung (Temple University School of Medicine) and content expert Nazareno Paolocci (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine) about the fascinating and comprehensive new study by Hoffman et al. By challenging conventional wisdom that calcium entry through Trpm2 channels worsens ischemia-reperfusion injury, Cheung and collaborators were surprised to discover the reverse—that by knocking out Trpm2 channels, ischemia-reperfusion injury was far worse than expected. Did Cheung and colleagues find that Trpm2 protects cardiomyocytes from ischemia-reperfusion dysfunction? Listen now.

Nicholas E. Hoffman, Barbara A. Miller, JuFang Wang, John W. Elrod, Sudasan Rajan, Erhe Gao, Jianliang Song, Xue-Qian Zhang, Iwona Hirschler-Laszkiewicz, Santhanam Shanmughapriya, Walter J. Koch, Arthur M. Feldman, Muniswamy Madesh, Joseph Y. Cheung Ca2+ entry via Trpm2 is essential for cardiac myocyte bioenergetics maintenance Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol, published March 15, 2015, doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00720.2014.