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(Circulation Research. 2003;93:387.)
© 2003 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorials

The Molecular Biology Frontier

Yoshio Yazaki

From the International Medical Center of Japan, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan.

Correspondence to Yoshio Yazaki, President, International Medical Center of Japan, 1-21-1 Toyama, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8655, Japan. E-mail yazaki@nciryo.hosp.go.jp

Key Words: fiftieth anniversary • molecular biology • cardiovascular research

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

To begin my personal reflection of Circulation Research, I would like to congratulate Eduardo Marbán and all the other Editors in commemoration of 50 years of this venerable journal. It is really a most honorable privilege for me to write this editorial, for Circulation Research was highly influential in encouraging me as a clinical cardiologist to become a scientific researcher.

In 1970, I started research on myocardial myosin by a biochemical approach to examine myocardial plasticity, whereby external physical (mechanical) stimuli exert significant effects on the cell interior. At that time, it was recognized that three types of myosin exist in muscle cells: red skeletal myosin, white skeletal myosin, and cardiac myosin. The enzymatic characteristics of cardiac myosin were similar to those of red skeletal myosin. While I studied at Tufts University under Dr M. Raben, we demonstrated that cardiac myosin obtained from rats and mice (small animals) had a high ATPase activity, that is, similar to the characteristics of white skeletal myosin. We were the first to find out that two types of myosin exist in cardiac muscle, and these two types were interchangeable by thyroid hormone. We were then able to present these results in Circulation Research.^1,2 This called forth a great response and became the start of an investigation of the mechanism of switching gene expression of myosin isozymes by using thyroid hormone. Thereafter, I published several manuscripts in Circulation Research, which I regard as among my most important research work. Owing to these . . . [Full Text of this Article]