Calcineurin and Cardiac Disease

For this article, Eugene Russo interviewed Eric N. Olson, chair of molecular biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. Data from the Web of Science (ISI, Philadelphia) show that Hot Papers are cited 50 to 100 times more often than the average paper of the same type and age. J.D. Molkentin, J.R. Lu, C.L. Antos, B. Markham, J. Richardson, J. Robbins, S.R. Grant, E.N. Olson, "A calcineurin-dependent transcriptional pathway for cardiac hypertrophy," Cell, 93: 215-28, April 17, 1998. (Cited in more than 180 papers since publication) When Eric N. Olson and his colleagues stumbled upon a novel pathway that leads to cardiac hypertrophy--an enlargement of the heart triggered by most forms of cardiac disease--they raised more than a little controversy. It so happens that the pathway they discovered is governed by the calcium-dependent phosphatase calcineurin, the very same phosphatase that has routinely been the target of the ...