Researchers have been able to see how heart failure affects the surface of an individual heart muscle cell in minute detail, using a new nanoscale scanning technique developed at Imperial College London. The findings may lead to better design of beta-blockers, the drugs that can slow the development of heart failure, and to improvements in current therapeutic approaches to treating heart failure and abnormal heart rhythms.

They used a new technique called scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM), which gives an image of the surface of the cardiac muscle cell at more detailed levels than those possible using conventional live microscopy. This enabled the researchers to see fine structures such as minute tubes (t- tubules), which carry electrical signals deep into the core of the cell. They could also see that the muscle cell surface is badly disrupted in heart failure.

There are two types of receptors for adrenaline. The first, beta1AR, strongly stimulates the heart to contract and it can also induce cell damage in the long term. The second, beta2AR, can slightly stimulate contraction but it also has special protective properties. For today's study, the researchers combined SICM with new chemical probes which give fluorescent signals when beta1AR or beta2AR is activated.

They found that the beta2AR receptors are normally anchored in the t-tubules, but in those cells damaged by heart failure they change location and move into the same space as beta1AR receptors. The researchers believe that this altered distribution of receptors might affect the beta2AR receptors' ability to protect cells, and lead to more rapid degeneration of the failing heart.

Continue Reading at: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummar...

Other Nanoscale News
Looking into Live Cells at Nanoscale Resolution: http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/20803/

Learn More about Nanoscale Scanning Techniques:

The Yamada Lab at UC Davis California
The video below was collected by hard working undergraduate and graduate students from Yamada lab in Department of Biomedical Engineering at Univeristy of California, Davis. You can find more about the Yamada lab at http://yamadalab.ucdavis.edu.

This video illustrates how human mammary epithelial cells interact with each other and move within a three-dimensional matrix. [Imaged by Adrienne Cheung]

ionscope limited
This video shows an image sequence taken using scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM) and shows kidney cells over a period of 24hrs at 40 x 40 micron resolution. The video clip is a sequence of images from amphibian renal cells (A6 cells) taken over a 24 hour period. During the sequence, you can see how the ridge structures are formed on the epithelial kidney cells. This video sequence is courtesy of ionscope Ltd. Nanounity is the U.S. representative for ionscope. http://www.ionscope.com/