Synopsis of PHD Disertasion Project

Atrial fibrillation is a common complication after cardiac surgery which contributes to morbidity, mortality and increase in health care costs.

Understanding of the mechanisms behind the onset of atrial fibrillation is not fully understood due to a plethora of factors including, inflammation, injury of the myocardium, oxidative stress etc, which contribute in the preservation of a high number of post operative atrial fibrillation cases.

For the prediction and diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, protein markers and miRNAs have been used as markers of gene expression associated with the development of this arrhythmia. However, interest has recently turned to collagen, as previous studies have highlighted their potential contribution to atrial fibrillation.

It has been shown that in patients with atrial fibrillation the ratio of expression of collagen type I and type III changes. In addition, collagen type XI (α1) and type V serve as a mold for collagens I and III, thus determining their structural properties and length. Changes in the collagen I/III ratio could be due to alterations in the expression of XI (α1) and V, which could be associated with the onset of atrial fibrillation after cardiac surgery.

The aim of the dissertation was to detect, quantify and correlate Collagen I, III, V and XI (α1) in patients with or without atrial fibrillation after cardiac surgery. For this purpose, after a written consent of patients to cardiac surgery, samples of vaginal heart tissue was obtained in which detection and quantification of the general transcripts and splicing variants of collagens I, III, V, XI (α1) was performed, with RT-qPCR methodologies developed by Attikon's University hospital research team.

Western Blot or Immunohistochemistry (ICH) methods were then developed for the expression of the isoforms at the protein level. Finally, a statistical analysis of the experimental results was made with patients' clinical and pathological data.