JCI table of contents: January 2, 2007

In an accompanying commentary, Brent DeGeorge and Walter Koch from Thomas Jefferson University comment that "the implications of these findings are of potentially profound clinical importance when considering the interindividual and ethnic variation that occurs in response to beta-adrenergic receptor therapy in the treatment of heart failure." Furthermore, "It has been reported.. [that].. the Arg389 variant is 20% less common in black patients compared with non-black patients, and this may partially explain the poorer response to beta1-adrenergic receptor antagonists seen in blacks compared with that of the rest of the population."

Future work to characterize the effect of genetic mutations in these receptors and the role such mutations play in the receptor's (and hence a patient's) response to these drugs, may eventually lead to a situation in which doctors could prescribe drug treatment that is adapted according to each patient's own genetic makeup, bringing new meaning to the idea of personalized medicine for the treatment of heart failure and other cardiac disorders.

TITLE: Real-time optical recording of beta1-adrenergic receptor activation reveals supersensitivity of the Arg389 variant to carvedilol

AUTHOR CONTACT:

Stefan Engelhardt
University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Phone: +49-931-201-48710; Fax: +49-931-201-48539; E-mail: .
View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=30012

ACCOMPANYING COMMENTARY

TITLE: Beta blocker specificity: a building block toward personalized medicine

AUTHOR CONTACT:

Walter Koch
Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Phone: (215) 955-9982; Fax: (215) 503-5731; E-mail: .
View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=30476

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