Joseph Palatinus
University of Utah, UT·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Heart muscle cells must deliver certain proteins to the exact spots where neighboring cells connect, so that electrical signals pass smoothly and the heart beats in rhythm. When this delivery, called protein trafficking, fails, dangerous heart rhythms (arrhythmias) and sudden cardiac death can follow.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Physiology
Biology
- Topics
arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy
sudden cardiac death
arrhythmia
- Grants
- 1 known grant, last ended Aug 2026
What they work on
- Test whether disorganized actin, the cell's internal scaffolding, causes the gap junction trafficking defects seen in the Desmoglein 2 (DSG2) mutant model of arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, using confocal and electron microscopy and proximity ligation labeling.
- Test whether GJA1-20k, a short actin-stabilizing form of Connexin 43, directly binds and stabilizes actin to restore gap junction delivery to the intercalated disk, using co-immunoprecipitation and imaging.
- Determine whether GJA1-20k rescues heart dysfunction, suppresses arrhythmias and prevents sudden cardiac death in DSG2 mutant mice, using echocardiography and in vivo telemetry monitoring.
More about the research
Many heart diseases involve faulty protein trafficking, yet no therapies target it.
Why it matters
Abnormal protein trafficking in heart muscle cells is linked to sudden cardiac death, but no current treatments correct it. If GJA1-20k restores trafficking in a mouse model of arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy, protein trafficking could become a new target for preventing dangerous arrhythmias and sudden death in patients with inherited cardiomyopathies and possibly other heart diseases.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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Ju Chen
University of California-San Diego, CA·Physiology
Test whether mini-ALPK3, a shortened version of the ALPK3 kinase delivered by the muscle-targeting MyoAAV virus on the first day of life, prevents cardiomyopathy and early death in Alpk3 knockout mice.
The school
University of Utah: 58 labs on PI Pages, $789M a year on research, 366 research doctorates a year.
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