Translating Koch’s Postulates to Identify Matrix Metalloproteinase Roles in Post-Myocardial Infarction Remodeling: The Cardiac Metalloproteinase Actions (CarMA) Postulates

摘要

The first matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) was described in 1962; and since the 1990’s, cardiovascular research has focused on understanding how MMPs regulate many aspects of cardiovascular pathology from atherosclerosis formation to myocardial infarction and stroke. While much information has been gleaned by these past reports, to a large degree MMP cardiovascular biology remains observational, with few studies homing in on cause and effect relationships. Koch’s postulates were first developed in the 19^th century as a way to establish microorganism function and were modified in the 20^th century to include methods to establish molecular causality. In this review, we outline the concept for establishing a similar approach to determine causality in terms of MMP functions. We use left ventricular remodeling post-myocardial infarction as an example, but this approach will have broad applicability across both the cardiovascular and MMP fields.