Sarcomeric protein isoform transitions in cardiac muscle: A journey to heart failure

Sarcomeric protein isoforms are mainly governed by alternative promoter-driven expression, distinct gene expression, gene mutation and alternative mRNA splicing. The transitions of sarcomeric proteins have been implicated to play a role in the onset and development of human heart failure. In this mini-review, we summarized isoform transitions of several most widely examined sarcomeric proteins including myosin, actin, troponin, tropomyosin, titin and myosin binding protein-C, and the consequence of these abnormal isoform transitions. Even though the isoform transitions of sarcomeric proteins have been described in individual sarcomeric protein reviews, no concise summary of these results has been presented previously. This review is intended to fill this gap and discuss possible future perspectives. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.