ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2016
Electrotonic coupling of excitable and nonexcitable cells in the heart revealed by optogenetics.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 135 papers.
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Who cites it
135 citing papers in PubMed, 212 citations in OpenAlex.
- Extracellular Vesicles in Cardiac Cell Crosstalk: from Intercellular Communication to Clinical Translation.Cardiovascular drugs and therapy · 2026Review
- Accelerated Intrinsic Beating Rate in Heterogeneously Coupled Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes Can Underlie Focal Ventricular Tachycardia in Regenerative Therapy.Journal of precision medicine (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026Article
- Interstitial cells and arrhythmia.American journal of physiology. Cell physiology · 2026Review
- Mechano-electrical feedback in transgenic rabbit models of long QT syndrome Type 2 and short QT syndrome Type 1.Europace : European pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac electrophysiology : journal of the working groups on cardiac pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac cellular electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology · 2026Article
- Gap junctional and ephaptic coupling in cardiac electrical propagation: homocellular and heterocellular perspectives.The Journal of physiology · 2026Review
- Models of cardiomyocyte-non-myocyte electrical interactions.The Journal of physiology · 2026Review
- Efficient in vivo targeting of the myocardial scar using Moloney murine leukaemia virus complexed with nanoparticles.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- Targeting Cardiac Fibroblast Plasticity for Antifibrotic and Regenerative Therapy in Heart Failure.Cells · 2026Review
- Correlative imaging integrates electrophysiology with three-dimensional murine heart reconstruction to reveal electrical coupling between cell types.Nature cardiovascular research · 2025Article
- Atrial Fibroblasts-Derived Extracellular Vesicles Exacerbate Atrial Arrhythmogenesis.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Cardiac Development, Cellular Composition and Function: From Regulatory Mechanisms to Applications.Cells · 2025Review
- Three-dimensional cellular construct with impregnated silicon nanowires for intracellular optoelectronic biointerface.Materials today. Bio · 2025Article
- Disturbed Repolarization-Relaxation Coupling During Acute Myocardial Ischemia Permits Systolic Mechano-Arrhythmogenesis.Circulation research · 2025Article
- Population-based computational simulations elucidate mechanisms of focal arrhythmia following stem cell injection.Journal of molecular and cellular cardiology · 2025Article
- The effect of non-local coupling of fibroblasts on pacing dynamics in a 2D tissue: a simulation study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Translation of pathophysiological mechanisms of atrial fibrosis into new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.Nature reviews. Cardiology · 2025Review
- Nanoparticle-assisted targeting of heart lesions with cardiac myofibroblasts: Combined gene and cell therapy.Theranostics · 2025Article
- Mitochondrial dysfunction as a central hub linking NaFrontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2025Review
- The epigenetic regulation of crosstalk between cardiac fibroblasts and other cardiac cell types during stress.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2025Review
- Atrial Fibrosis in Atrial Fibrillation: Mechanistic Insights, Diagnostic Challenges, and Emerging Therapeutic Targets.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
75 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Electrophysiological studies of excitable organs usually focus on action potential (AP)-generating cells, whereas nonexcitable cells are generally considered as barriers to electrical conduction. Whether nonexcitable cells may modulate excitable cell function or even contribute to AP conduction via direct electrotonic coupling to AP-generating cells is unresolved in the heart: such coupling is present in vitro, but conclusive evidence in situ is lacking. We used genetically encoded voltage-sensitive fluorescent protein 2.3 (VSFP2.3) to monitor transmembrane potential in either myocytes or nonmyocytes of murine hearts. We confirm that VSFP2.3 allows measurement of cell type-specific electrical activity. We show that VSFP2.3, expressed solely in nonmyocytes, can report cardiomyocyte AP-like signals at the border of healed cryoinjuries. Using EM-based tomographic reconstruction, we further discovered tunneling nanotube connections between myocytes and nonmyocytes in cardiac scar border tissue. Our results provide direct electrophysiological evidence of heterocellular electrotonic coupling in native myocardium and identify tunneling nanotubes as a possible substrate for electrical cell coupling that may be in addition to previously discovered connexins at sites of myocyte-nonmyocyte contact in the heart. These findings call for reevaluation of cardiac nonmyocyte roles in electrical connectivity of the heterocellular heart.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.