Zhaojunze Huang, Xianting Yang, Long Wang, Jiashun Huang, Yi Zhou, Xin Guo
{"title":"RNA-Binding Proteins Regulate Cardiovascular Disease Progression Through Alternative Splicing and Alternative Polyadenylation.","authors":"Zhaojunze Huang, Xianting Yang, Long Wang, Jiashun Huang, Yi Zhou, Xin Guo","doi":"10.1007/s12265-026-10844-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12265-026-10844-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Alternative splicing (AS) and alternative polyadenylation (APA) are crucial post-transcriptional mechanisms enhancing transcriptomic and proteomic diversity. Dysregulation of AS and APA is pivotal in cardiovascular disease pathogenesis. This review focuses on RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) orchestrating AS and APA interplay in cardiovascular gene expression, particularly in cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) like atherosclerosis, heart failure, myocardial fibrosis, and ventricular remodeling. AS and APA exhibit intricate crosstalk, with RBPs influencing both processes. Key RBPs play mechanistic roles in immune regulation, calcium handling, and fibrotic signaling in CVDs. Additional regulatory factors such as non-coding RNAs, microbial influences, and redox signaling further modulate RBP activity and AS/APA outcomes. Targeting RBP-mediated AS and APA presents a promising therapeutic approach for CVDs, despite challenges related to specificity, regulatory complexity, and validation in human models. Future research should delve into cell-type-specific profiles and preclinical efficacy to advance precision treatments.</p>","PeriodicalId":15224,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149074688","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Xinru Wang, Ruyi Du, Yuchen Wang, A Z M Fahim Siddique, Bohan Li, Qi Wang, Yuanyuan Guo, Tiankai Li
{"title":"Nesfatin-1 as a Cardiovascular-Metabolic-Immune Integrator: Insights from Cellular Cross-talk to Precision Medicine.","authors":"Xinru Wang, Ruyi Du, Yuchen Wang, A Z M Fahim Siddique, Bohan Li, Qi Wang, Yuanyuan Guo, Tiankai Li","doi":"10.1007/s12265-026-10830-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12265-026-10830-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Nesfatin-1 is a multifunctional peptide that integrates cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune regulation, particularly along the \"Heart-Brain-Gut\" axis. Accumulating evidence highlights its pivotal role in inter-organ communication under both physiological and pathological conditions. However, its underlying molecular mechanisms remain incompletely understood, and the prevailing orphan G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) hypothesis is currently undergoing critical scrutiny due to accumulating data that contest its exclusivity and sufficiency in accounting for nesfatin-1's pleiotropic effects. This review provides a comprehensive synthesis of recent advances in these fields, with a focus on putative non-canonical signaling mechanisms and lipid rafts. By examining these non-canonical mechanisms and their implications for cellular cross-talk, we provide new insights into how nesfatin-1 coordinates multi-system integration. Furthermore, we discuss its translational relevance for precision medicine and targeted therapies against multi-organ diseases, proposing a comprehensive framework to guide future research and clinical applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":15224,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149069646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Next-Generation Bone Marrow Cell Therapies for Cardiac Repair: Integrating Gene Therapy and Bioengineering to Enhance Therapeutic Potency.","authors":"Busra Cesur Ergun, Busra Cetin, Ozgur Dandin, Salih Sanlioglu","doi":"10.1007/s12265-026-10847-8","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12265-026-10847-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Next-generation bone marrow cell (BMC) therapies are evolving to address longstanding translational challenges in regenerative cardiology by shifting from conventional cell transplantation toward precision-engineered repair systems. Although early approaches using bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells and mesenchymal stem cells demonstrated safety, clinical efficacy remained limited, with modest improvements in left ventricular ejection fraction and inconsistent long-term outcomes. These clinical limitations are largely attributed to poor cell retention, reduced survival within the ischemic microenvironment, and diminished potency of autologous cells. To overcome these barriers, current research focuses on genetic enhancement of BMCs. Key targets include the SDF-1/CXCR4 axis to improve homing and Akt signaling to enhance resistance to apoptosis, utilizing advanced tools such as modified mRNA and CRISPR/Cas9 to enable precise modulation of regenerative pathways. While ongoing clinical studies highlight the translational potential of these approaches, overcoming limited clinical efficacy remains the primary benchmark for the field. CLINICAL RELEVANCE STATEMENT: By combining gene therapy and bioengineering, this next-generation approach overcomes the critical hurdles of poor cell survival and low retention that have historically limited the success of standard bone marrow cell therapies in ischemic hearts. Clinically, this integrated strategy offers a more potent, disease-modifying treatment capable of driving robust cardiac regeneration, reducing infarct size, and ultimately preventing the progression of end-stage heart failure.</p>","PeriodicalId":15224,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149061385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Prosper Ughakpoteni, Yaseen Akhtar, Ahmad Chaddad, Sarah Alkhodair, Tareef Daqqaq
{"title":"Cross-cohort Generalization for Heart Disease Prediction with Explainable AI.","authors":"Prosper Ughakpoteni, Yaseen Akhtar, Ahmad Chaddad, Sarah Alkhodair, Tareef Daqqaq","doi":"10.1007/s12265-026-10842-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12265-026-10842-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We propose CardioTransfer-X, a cross-cohort transfer learning framework within a related clinical benchmark family for tabular CVD risk prediction that yields performance comparable to training from scratch while preserving transparency. Predictive models are pre-trained on a composite multi-hospital heart disease dataset to learn generalized risk patterns, then fine-tuned on the smaller, distributionally distinct Cleveland Heart Disease dataset. To mitigate dataset shift and class imbalance, we introduce a stability-aware, correlation-based feature selection strategy and apply SMOTE only during training. CardioTransfer-X is instantiated with XGBoost, TabNet, and a MLP, enabling systematic comparison across tree-based and neural models. SHAP-based explanations provide global interpretability across architectures, with consistent feature importance rankings before and after fine-tuning. Fine-tuned XGBoost achieves 80.65±4.08% accuracy and 81.74±3.71% F1-score on the Cleveland dataset while maintaining stable source-domain performance, showing performance competitive with training from scratch, while shifting the decision boundary toward higher sensitivity and maintaining clinically meaningful feature attributions.</p>","PeriodicalId":15224,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149030678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrés Bell-Navas, Jesús Garicano-Mena, Antonella Ausiello, Soledad Le Clainche, María Villalba-Orero, Enrique Lara-Pezzi
{"title":"CardioMOD-Net: A Modal Decomposition-Neural Network Framework for Diagnosis and Prognosis of Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction from Echocardiography Cine Loops.","authors":"Andrés Bell-Navas, Jesús Garicano-Mena, Antonella Ausiello, Soledad Le Clainche, María Villalba-Orero, Enrique Lara-Pezzi","doi":"10.1007/s12265-026-10832-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12265-026-10832-1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":15224,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149030645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Giuseppe Pinto, Paolo Santambrogio, Sonia Maria Rosa Levi, Giulia Marchionni, Annalisa Bucchi, Valentina Da Prat, Andrea Pontara, Stefania Zambelli, Giampaolo Bianchini, Luca Gianni, Angelo Corti, Alberto Margonato, Fabio Ciceri, Gabriele Fragasso
{"title":"Mitochondrial Ferritin in Subclinical Anthracycline-Induced Cardiotoxicity in Humans: A Pilot Study.","authors":"Giuseppe Pinto, Paolo Santambrogio, Sonia Maria Rosa Levi, Giulia Marchionni, Annalisa Bucchi, Valentina Da Prat, Andrea Pontara, Stefania Zambelli, Giampaolo Bianchini, Luca Gianni, Angelo Corti, Alberto Margonato, Fabio Ciceri, Gabriele Fragasso","doi":"10.1007/s12265-026-10846-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12265-026-10846-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study investigated the effects of anthracyclines on mitochondrial ferritin (MtFt) expression in primary murine cardiomyocytes and in cancer patients. MtFt expression was first evaluated in murine cardiomyocytes before and after doxorubicin exposure. Subsequently, MtFt levels were assessed in peripheral blood cells of 26 cancer patients at baseline, at the end of treatment, and 12 months after the first cycle, together with high-sensitivity troponin T (hsTnT), N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). Doxorubicin-treated murine cardiomyocytes exhibited increased MtFt expression compared with untreated cells. No patient developed clinically relevant cardiotoxicity. A weak but significant inverse association was observed between MtFt levels and LVEF at the end of treatment. Multivariable linear regression showed no significant predictive effect of hsTnT, NT-proBNP, or time on MtFt changes, although MtFt levels tended to decrease and hsTnT levels to increase over time.</p>","PeriodicalId":15224,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149024969","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Paul Marano, Jennifer E Van Eyk, C Noel Bairey Merz
{"title":"Author Response to 'Persistent Proteomic Signatures in Takotsubo Syndrome: Methodological Considerations Regarding Reference Cohort Selection and Confounding'.","authors":"Paul Marano, Jennifer E Van Eyk, C Noel Bairey Merz","doi":"10.1007/s12265-026-10838-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12265-026-10838-9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":15224,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149001904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pengjie Tao, Yeting Zhang, Yuwen Chen, Stephan Erbe, Jes-Niels Boeckel, Dongchao Lu
{"title":"Cardiac Macrophage-specific circHIPK2: a New Regulator of Post-infarction Inflammation and Cardiac Remodeling.","authors":"Pengjie Tao, Yeting Zhang, Yuwen Chen, Stephan Erbe, Jes-Niels Boeckel, Dongchao Lu","doi":"10.1007/s12265-026-10836-x","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12265-026-10836-x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":15224,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148968863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Self-Nanoemulsifying Drug Delivery Systems for Cardiovascular Therapeutics: Formulation Strategies, Pharmacokinetic Enhancement and Precision-Oriented Translation.","authors":"Rohit Sharma, Abhay Thakur, Rahul Sharma","doi":"10.1007/s12265-026-10841-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12265-026-10841-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cardiovascular drugs face many barriers to oral delivery, and self-nanoemulsifying drug delivery systems (SNEDDS) are becoming a promising nano-enabled drug delivery vehicle to address these challenges and aid precision cardiovascular delivery. The poor aqueous solubility and/or intestinal permeability, combined with high intestinal and hepatic clearance and, in some cases, intestinal P-glycoprotein (P-gp) efflux, leads to variable systemic exposure and inconsistent therapeutic activity of many antihypertensive drugs, antianginal drugs, and cardioprotective agents. Under gastrointestinal dilution conditions, SNEDDS spontaneously generate nanosized oil-in-water emulsions that keep drugs in a solubilized state, promote drug dissolution, enhance membrane interactions, increase intestinal permeability levels due to surfactant activity, reduce membrane fluidization by P-glycoprotein mediated efflux, increase lymphatic transport, decrease hepatic first pass metabolism, and decrease pharmacokinetic variability. This allows for more predictable pharmacokinetic performance, reduced interpatient variability, therapeutic optimization, and therefore an enabling concept of nano-enabled precision cardiology. This graphical abstract depicts the importance of self-nanoemulsifying drug delivery systems (SNEDDS) for enhancing drug absorption, providing enhanced bioavailability, increasing drug absorption and pharmacokinetic predictability, and facilitating precision cardiovascular therapy by overcoming the oral bioavailability barriers.</p>","PeriodicalId":15224,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148930074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Role and Mechanism of Endothelial Progenitor Cell-Derived Extracellular Vesicles in Vascular Repair of Ischemic Heart Disease.","authors":"Qiling Han, Xinmei Wang, Houjin Zhao","doi":"10.1007/s12265-026-10822-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s12265-026-10822-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Ischemic heart disease (IHD) remains a leading global cause of death, sustained by microvascular dysfunction and defective endogenous repair despite revascularization. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) were initially proposed as regenerative mediators, but direct cell therapy is constrained by poor engraftment, phenotypic heterogeneity, and safety concerns. Accumulating evidence establishes EPC-derived extracellular vesicles (EPC-EVs) as the principal effectors of vascular repair. These vesicles deliver bioactive cargo-including miR-126, miR-210, lncRNAs, and proteins that activate VEGF/PI3K/AKT/eNOS signaling in endothelial cells, promote angiogenesis and endothelial survival, attenuate apoptosis and ferroptosis, and induce reparative M2 macrophage polarization. Compared with cell therapy, EPC-EVs offer superior stability, lower immunogenicity, and manufacturing control as a cell-free platform. Translational challenges persist, including inconsistent EPC definitions, isolation variability, absence of validated potency assays linked to cardiovascular endpoints, and limited long-term safety data. Engineering strategies such as hypoxic preconditioning and targeted delivery may facilitate clinical translation of EPC-EV therapy for IHD.</p>","PeriodicalId":15224,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cardiovascular Translational Research","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2026-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148919445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}