Mechanistic Role of If Revealed by Induction of Ventricular Automaticity by Somatic Gene Transfer of Gating-Engineered Pacemaker (HCN) Channels

摘要

BackgroundAlthough If, encoded by the hyperpolarization-activated cyclic-nucleotide-modulated (HCN) channel gene family, is known to be functionally important in pacing, its mechanistic action is largely inferential and indeed somewhat controversial. To dissect in detail the role of If, we investigated the functional consequences of overexpressing in adult guinea pig left ventricular cardiomyocytes (LVCMs) various HCN1 constructs that have been engineered to exhibit different gating properties.