Review Articles in 2022

The relationship between climate change and health outcomes is complex. In this Review, Rajagopalan and colleagues describe the environmental exposures associated with climate change and provide an overview of the consequences of climate change, including air pollution and extreme temperatures, on cardiovascular health and disease.

In this Review, Kluin and colleagues describe the historical milestones and lessons learned in the development of total artificial hearts (TAHs), discuss the current generation of TAHs and their working mechanisms, and highlight challenges and future perspectives for the field, including new technologies that will promote TAH development in the coming decade.

Drugs can be repurposed for new therapeutic indications. In this Review, Mercola and colleagues summarize the latest techniques for systematic drug repurposing and re-engineering, which could increase the pace, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of drug discovery for the treatment of cardiovascular disease.

In this Review, Khan and colleagues discuss the benefits and challenges of including pragmatism in the design, conduct and interpretation of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for cardiovascular disease and highlight selected ongoing and completed cardiovascular RCTs that incorporate a pragmatic design.

In this Review, Quiles and Gustafsson compare the physiological and pathophysiological roles of mitochondrial fission and discuss the therapeutic potential of preventing excessive mitochondrial fission in the heart and vasculature.

In this Review, the authors summarize the latest advances in cardioimmunology and discuss experimental tools and strategies that are currently available for the study of immune cells, guiding readers through case-based examples to provide recommendations for the use of immunological tools and strategies in the study of immune cells in cardiac disease.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been widely adopted in research on coronary atherosclerosis and adopted clinically to optimize percutaneous coronary intervention. In this Review, Jang and colleagues summarize this rapidly progressing field, with the aim of standardizing the use of OCT in coronary atherosclerosis.

In this Review, the authors explore metabolic dysregulation as an important theme in cardio-oncology. They discuss metabolic reprogramming in cardiovascular disease and cancer and the possibility that therapeutically targeting metabolic and immunometabolic changes in patients with cancer might also reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease.

The microtubule network of cardiomyocytes has unique architectural and biophysical features. In this Review, Caporizzo and Prosser discuss the contribution of microtubules to cardiac mechanics, the drivers of microtubule network remodelling in heart failure and the therapeutic potential of targeting cardiac microtubules in acquired heart diseases.

The most commonly available blood pressure (BP) monitoring devices are useful for capturing a snapshot BP value, but most have limited utility in measuring BP variability. In this Review, Schutte and colleagues outline the advantages and disadvantages of conventional and novel techniques to measure average BP levels and BP variability.

In this Review, the authors discuss the latest insight into the 3D nanostructure of the heart and how deformation during contraction and relaxation affects cellular function. They also describe technological breakthroughs in biological sample preparation, 3D imaging and data analysis with electron microscopy.

Sirtuins are NAD⁺-dependent deacetylase and deacylase enzymes that control important cellular processes, such as DNA damage repair, cellular metabolism and inflammation. In this Review, Grootaert and Bennett discuss the role of sirtuins in atherosclerosis and evaluate the therapeutic potential of agents designed to activate or inhibit sirtuin activity.

Transthyretin amyloidosis is a progressive, life-threatening disease caused by the accumulation of misfolded transthyretin, predominantly in the nerves and heart. In this Review, Aimo and colleagues provide an update on the treatment strategies aimed at blocking transthyretin production, including small interfering RNAs, antisense oligonucleotides and gene editing approaches.

In this Review, Borén and colleagues provide an overview of the pathways involved in triglyceride-rich lipoprotein (TRL) assembly and intravascular processing, and discuss how the dysregulation of triglyceride transport can result in hypertriglyceridaemia.

Variants in genes encoding sarcomeric proteins can cause hypertrophic or dilated cardiomyopathy. In this Review, the authors discuss therapeutic strategies to target the cardiac sarcomere, focusing on four small molecules that have been developed that inhibit or activate the myosin motor protein to decrease or increase contractile force, respectively.

In this Review, Santovito and Weber discuss the functional relevance of non-canonical features of microRNAs for cardiovascular homeostasis and pathophysiology, describing the role of atypical microRNA biogenesis and localization, RISC heterogeneity, and non-conventional regulatory functions, including direct protein interactions and transcriptional regulation in the nucleus and in mitochondria.

The autonomic nervous system profoundly affects the function of the cardiovascular and immune systems. In this Review, Carnevale summarizes how the neural regulation of immunity and inflammation participates in the onset and progression of cardiovascular disease and explores promising opportunities for therapeutic strategies.

In this Review, Iacobellis provides a comprehensive overview of the role of epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) in cardiovascular disease, including coronary artery disease, heart failure and atrial fibrillation, discusses imaging techniques for EAT assessment and highlights the therapeutic potential of targeting EAT in cardiovascular disease.

Numerous new CRISPR-based genome-editing tools have expanded the application of genome editing to include gene-expression control, epigenome editing, RNA editing and live-cell imaging. In this Review, Wu and colleagues describe how these novel CRISPR tools are used to investigate biological processes and disease pathophysiology for cardiovascular research and medicine.

In this Review, the authors provide an overview of the immune cells involved in atherosclerosis, discuss preclinical research and published and ongoing clinical trials assessing the therapeutic potential of targeting the immune system in atherosclerosis, highlight emerging therapeutic targets from preclinical studies and identify challenges for successful clinical translation.