Do activators of the kappa-opioid receptor hold the potential for anti-arrhythmic drug development?

摘要

Protection from cardiac arrhythmias can experimentally be accomplished by selective K-opioid receptor activation (1). In this issue of Critical Care Medicine, the study by Dr. Zhang and colleagues (2) investigates the regulation of connexin 43 (Cx43) by K-opioid receptor activation in a rat model of myocardial ischemia and reperfusion. Cx43 is the main gap junction protein in the working ventricular myocardium by which the action potential is propagated between cells (3).