Junk Heart

Our cells demand peak performance. Usually when proteins wear out, or suffer damage, they’re broken up and their parts reused. This vital recycling keeps demanding tissues like muscles working efficiently. Compared to the slice of healthy mouse’s heart on the left, disruption to recycling leaves the second mouse’s heart strewn with clumped-together chemicals (highlighted in red on the right). Mutation in a single gene, BAG3, allows harmful 'junk' proteins to build up – the heart gradually becomes less efficient; eventually its cells will die. While such mutations are rare, human sufferers often develop severe childhood cardiomyopathy and rarely live beyond 20 years of age. As with many rare conditions, research funding is often focussed elsewhere, but here a team of scientists explores potential treatments, including gene therapies, that might one day help with other rare disorders.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Image from work by Kenichi Kimura, Astrid Ooms and Kathrin Graf-Riesen, and colleagues
• Institute of Physiology I, Life and Brain Center, Medical Faculty, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature Communications, June 2021