Short-coupled ventricular fibrillation (SCVF) is a lethal, primary electrical disorder and an important cause of unexplained cardiac arrest.1 Recent work from our group suggests that a substantial proportion of SCVF cases is associated to circulating autoantibodies targeting TREK-1, a cardiac potassium channel, resulting in an abnormal gain-of-function which is the prerequisite for the SCVF phenotype.2 This proposal is a translational multicenter study to validate anti-TREK-1 autoantibodies as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in a large, diversified cohort of SCVF patients (Figure 1). Functional, cellular experiments in patient-derived hiPSC cardiomyocytes and Purkinje cells will be performed to explore the cell type-specific role of TREK-1 in arrhythmogenesis, while single-nuclear RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq) will allow us to establish the transcriptomic profile (Figure 1). These results will identify the cellular substrate for SCVF.
Please refer to the uploaded study protocol
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
300
Semiquantitative measure of circulating anti-TREK-1 autoantibodies in plasma of study participants using a peptid microarray
Systematic genetic screening for the Dutch DPP6 risk haplotype in all study participants and correlation of results with the presence or absence of anti-TREK-1 autoantibodies
Institut universitaire de cardiologie et pneumologie de Québec
Québec, Quebec, Canada
Presence of anti-TREK-1 autoantibodies at three different time points
Plasma concentrations of anti-TREK-1 autoantibodies (semiquantitative measure using a peptide microarray at three predefined time points
Time frame: 12 months
Time-dependent variability of plasma concentrations of anti-TREK-1 autoantibodies
Repeat plasma sampling to assess the presence/absence of anti-TREK-1 autoantibodies and time-dependent variability of antibody expression
Time frame: 12 months
Impact of anti-TREK-1 autoantibodies on disease severity
Correlation of the presence (plasma concentration) of anti-TREK-1 autoantibodies with recurrent VF, electrical storm and appropriate ICD therapies
Time frame: 12 months
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