Recent Advances in the Role of Translation Machinery and Translational Control in the Cardiovascular System

Dear Colleagues,

Cardiovascular diseases are being recognized at an accelerating frequency and are a cause of heart failure. The major types of cardiovascular diseases include coronary artery disease (CAD), peripheral artery disease (PAD), stroke, and heart diseases such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), restrictive cardiomyopathy (RCM), arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), genetic cardiomyopathy, and ischemic cardiomyopathy (caused by myocardial infarction). For instance, in cardiomyopathy, the heart muscle becomes enlarged, thick, or rigid, which can lead to other cardiac conditions such as valve problems, blood clots, heart failure, cardiac arrest, and sudden death. The underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms of pathological changes and transition from cardiovascular disease to cardiomyopathy and heart failure remain poorly defined. In addition, congenital defects in vascular and cardiac development can cause cardiovascular disease. The role of translation machinery and the subsequent translational control of protein synthesis is increasingly attracting researchers’ attention in the field of cardiovascular systems and related diseases. Translational regulations occur when ribosomes are loaded to mature mRNAs by translation initiation factors, followed by translation elongation for decoding individual genetic codons to translate mRNA into a protein product. This process includes the translation preinitiation complex binding to the 5’ cap and scanning through the 5’ untranslated region (UTR), ribosome assembly at the start codons to initiate translation, ribosome-directed translation elongation on the coding sequence (CDS), and translation termination at the stop codon, involving translational control by many trans-acting RNA-binding proteins, translation factors, kinases, and signaling molecules. Thus, we invite investigators to contribute original research articles and review articles focused on the role of translation machinery and translational control in physiological homeostasis and pathological changes in the cardiovascular system.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Translational control of cardiovascular development and diseases;
• Function and mechanism of translation factors and RNA-binding proteins in the pathological changes in the cardiovascular system;
• Role of non-coding RNAs in the regulation of protein synthesis in cardiovascular disease and heart failure;
• Signaling pathways in translational regulation to the structural and functional alterations of the heart and blood vessels;
• Novel translation-manipulating therapeutic approaches in cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Peng Yao
Dr. Wei Guo
Guest Editors

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• translational control
• translation machinery
• RNA-binding protein
• non-coding RNA