Brian P Delisle
University of Kentucky, KY·Physiology
Sudden cardiac death often follows a dangerous heart rhythm, or arrhythmia, and for decades researchers have suspected that the body's internal 24-hour clocks influence when these events strike. Circadian clocks keep body processes in step with daily cycles of light, activity and eating.
- Fields
Physiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Pharmacology
- Topics
circadian rhythm
circadian clock
chronobiology
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2028
What they work on
- Identify the conserved cis-regulatory DNA elements that give cardiac ion channel genes their daily rhythm, using LumiCycle bioluminescence promoter assays, chromatin immunoprecipitation and electrophoretic mobility shift assays.
- Determine how circadian alignment and misalignment from time-restricted feeding change the transcription and translation of heart excitability genes, using mRNA-seq and Ribo-seq on mouse myocardium.
- Test whether manipulating feeding–fasting cycles alters cardiac electrophysiology and arrhythmia susceptibility in Scn5a+/- mice, which have impaired heart conduction from reduced sodium channel levels.
- Examine how feeding–fasting cycles change the autonomic nervous system's control of heart electrical activity, using inducible cardiomyocyte-specific Rrad knockout (iCSdeltaRrad) mice.
More about the research
Exactly how they connect to arrhythmia risk is still unclear. This project asks how the clocks control ion channels, the pores in heart cells that carry the electrical signals of each heartbeat, and whether the timing of meals could be used to lower arrhythmia risk.
Why it matters
People with cardiovascular disease face a risk of arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death that appears tied to daily rhythms. By showing how the body clock and meal timing shape the heart's electrical system, this work could point to simple chronotherapeutic strategies, such as scheduled feeding–fasting cycles, that vulnerable patients might adopt to lower arrhythmia risk.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Joseph S Takahashi
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Physiology
Test whether time-restricted feeding, eating only within a daily window, can extend lifespan in mice without reducing calories, building on the finding that nighttime caloric restriction raises lifespan gain from 10% to 35%.
Shelley Tischkau
Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, IL·Physiology
Test whether restricted feeding, limiting food intake to set times of day, can reset circadian clock function and restore adipose tissue rhythms after the clock is disrupted by chronic activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) by pollutants such as dioxins.
Richard Z Lin
Stony Brook University, NY·Pharmacology
Identify compounds that increase the IKs potassium current by acting on its calmodulin and ATP interactions or on pore opening, using structure-based computer screening of a library of more than one million compounds.
The school
University of Kentucky: 34 labs on PI Pages, $528M a year on research, 319 research doctorates a year.
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