In vivo phage display identifies novel peptides for cardiac targeting.

Heart failure remains a leading cause of mortality. Therapeutic intervention for heart failure would benefit from targeted delivery to the damaged heart tissue. Here, we applied in vivo peptide phage display coupled with high-throughput Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) and identified peptides specifically targeting damaged cardiac tissue. We established a bioinformatics pipeline for the identification of cardiac targeting peptides. Hit peptides demonstrated preferential uptake by human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes and immortalized mouse HL1 cardiomyocytes, without substantial uptake in human liver HepG2 cells. These novel peptides hold promise for use in targeted drug delivery and regenerative strategies and open new avenues in cardiovascular research and clinical practice.

Increased tetanic calcium in early fatigue of mammalian muscle fibers is accompanied by accelerated force development despite a decreased force.

During the initial phase of fatigue induced by repeated contractions in fast-twitch muscle fibers, tetanic force decreases despite increasing tetanic free cytosolic [Ca2+ ] ([Ca2+ ]cyt ). Here, we hypothesized that the increase in tetanic [Ca2+ ]cyt nevertheless has positive effects on force in early fatigue. Experiments on enzymatically isolated mouse flexor digitorum brevis (FDB) fibers showed that an increase in tetanic [Ca2+ ]cyt during ten 350 ms contractions required trains of electrical pulses to be elicited at short intervals (≤2 s) and at high frequencies (≥70 Hz). Mechanically dissected mouse FDB fibers showed greater decrease in tetanic force when the stimulation frequency during contractions was gradually reduced to prevent the increase in tetanic [Ca2+ ]cyt . Novel analyses of data from previous studies revealed an increased rate of force development in the tenth fatiguing contraction in mouse FDB fibers, as well as in rat FDB and human intercostal fibers. Mouse FDB fibers deficient in creatine kinase showed no increase in tetanic [Ca2+ ]cyt and slowed force development in the tenth contraction; after injection of creatine kinase to enable phosphocreatine breakdown, these fibers showed an increase in tetanic [Ca2+ ]cyt and accelerated force development. Mouse FDB fibers exposed to ten short contractions (43 ms) produced at short intervals (142 ms) showed increased tetanic [Ca2+ ]cyt accompanied by a marked (~16%) increase in the developed force. In conclusion, the increase in tetanic [Ca2+ ]cyt in early fatigue is accompanied by accelerated force development, which under some circumstances can counteract the decline in physical performance caused by the concomitant decrease in maximum force.