Funding outcome

The risk of heart failure drastically increases following a heart attack, a cardiovascular event involving obstructed blood flow to a portion of the heart, leading to local tissue death. Existing medications are ineffective in preventing the decline in heart function after a heart attack. Men and women have different patterns and symptoms of heart failure. Consequently, males and females respond differently to heart failure treatments; some medications pose a higher risk of death for female patients compared to males, which urges the need for a safe therapeutic for women. This research is translational and can be applied in a clinical setting for heart failure patients. Prolonging the beneficial effects of the naturally occurring compound in the body, apelin, led to favourable results in women impacted by heart failure. Apelin promotes blood vessel growth and improves blood flow to injured tissues. Therefore, an apelin analog (AA) that is resistant to breakdown has been developed. We aim to explore the sex-specific manifestations of heart failure and biochemical mechanisms by which this drug operates. Our experiment will use male and female mice, each containing three groups: control mice, those that will experience a surgically induced heart attack treated with the AA, or those who experience a heart attack without the AA treatment. One week after recovery from the heart attack, heart function will be assessed by clinical imaging technologies such as echocardiography. After, the structure and molecular composition of the hearts will be analyzed using biochemical techniques that involve measuring levels of genetic material and proteins indicative of heart failure, and conducting tissue staining. This allows us to observe and understand sex-specific changes in the heart after a heart attack, as well as differential male and female responses to the drug. This project is important to investigate this drug's potential to improve female cardiac health outcomes and recovery after a heart attack.