Remodelling Ca2+ signalling systems and cardiac hypertrophy

In cardiac cells, Ca2+ signals appear as brief transients responsible for controlling both contraction and transcription. Information may be encoded in these digital signals through changes in both frequency and shape. An increase in Ca2+ signalling contributes to a process of phenotypic remodelling during hypertrophy. The increase in Ca2+ that drives the larger contractions may be responsible for switching on a second process of signalosome remodelling to down-regulate the Ca2+ signalling pathway. It is a change in the properties of the Ca2+ transient that seems to carry the information responsible for the remodelling of the cardiac gene transcription programme that leads first to hypertrophy and then to congestive heart failure.