Detail

Keywords

Arrhythmias, Cardiac; Calcium Channels, L-Type; Cardiac Electrophysiology; Cardiomyopathy, Dilated; Muscular Dystrophy, Duchenne; Voltage-Gated Sodium Channels

Research group(s)

• Muscle physiology
  Head: Karlheinz Hilber
  Research Area: Skeletal and cardiac muscle physiology
  Members:
  Karlheinz Hilber
  Xaver König

Research interests

• Cardiac ion channel impairments in the diseased heart
• Effects of drugs on cardiac ion channels

Techniques, methods & infrastructure

whole cell patch clamp technique, isolation of cardiomyocytes from neonatal and adult mouse and guinea pig hearts, human induced pluripotent stem cell- derived cardiomyocytes, muscular dystrophy mouse models, standard biochemistry and molecular biology 

Members of this research group have access to a cell culture, a standard biochemistry and molecular biology lab, and a patch clamp rig.

Grants

• Cardiac calcium channel abnormalities in Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (2017)
  Source of Funding: FWF (Austrian Science Fund), Stand-Alone Projects
  Principal Investigator
• Voltage-gated ion channel dysfunction in dystrophic muscle (2010)
  Source of Funding: FWF (Austrian Science Fund), Stand-Alone Projects
  Principal Investigator
• Cardiogenic substances (2009)
  Source of Funding: aws (Austria Wirtschaftsservice), PRIZE
  Principal Investigator
• Ion channel plasticity in transforming skeletal muscle (2006)
  Source of Funding: FWF (Austrian Science Fund), Stand-Alone Projects
  Principal Investigator
• Na channels in fast and slow skeletal muscle (2001)
  Source of Funding: FWF (Austrian Science Fund), Stand-Alone Projects
  Principal Investigator

Selected publications

1. Rubi, L. et al., 2018. Calcium current properties in dystrophin�deficient ventricular cardiomyocytes from aged mdx mice. Physiological Reports, 6(1), p.e13567. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.14814/phy2.13567.
2. Koenig, X. & Hilber, K., 2015. The Anti-Addiction Drug Ibogaine and the Heart: A Delicate Relation. Molecules, 20(2), pp.2208-2228. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules20022208.
3. Koenig, X. et al., 2013. Enhanced currents through L-type calcium channels in cardiomyocytes disturb the electrophysiology of the dystrophic heart. AJP: Heart and Circulatory Physiology, 306(4), pp.H564-H573. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1152/ajpheart.00441.2013.
4. Koenig, X. et al., 2012. Anti-addiction drug ibogaine inhibits hERG channels: a cardiac arrhythmia risk. Addiction Biology, 19(2), pp.237-239. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1369-1600.2012.00447.x.
5. Koenig, X. et al., 2011. Voltage-Gated Ion Channel Dysfunction Precedes Cardiomyopathy Development in the Dystrophic Heart M. Rota, ed. PLoS ONE, 6(5), p.e20300. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0020300.