Physiology (Bethesda). 2026 Apr 29. doi: 10.1152/physiol.00007.2026. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
Heart failure (HF) remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide despite major advances in pharmacological and device-based therapies. A central limitation of current treatments is their predominant focus on neurohumoral modulation rather than the intrinsic biological processes driving cardiac remodeling. Recent progress in genetics, single-cell and spatial omics, and systems biology has fundamentally reshaped our understanding of HF, revealing it as a heterogeneous, multicellular syndrome characterized by disrupted intercellular communication within the cardiac cellular ecosystem. Endothelial cells, fibroblasts, immune cells, and cardiomyocytes engage in dynamic signaling networks that coordinate myocardial structure, metabolism, and function; pathological remodeling emerges when these networks become maladaptive. Circulating biomarkers increasingly serve as readouts of these intercellular interactions, reflecting senescence, inflammation, fibrosis, and metabolic stress. Among them, insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 7 has emerged as a key mediator linking endothelial cell senescence to cardiomyocyte metabolic dysfunction. In parallel, stress-activated fibroblast subpopulations drive HF progression through paracrine signaling pathways such as the MYC-CXCL1-CXCR2 axis. These insights open new therapeutic opportunities beyond conventional pharmacology. Immunization-based strategies targeting pathological intercellular communication represent a novel paradigm for disease-modifying HF therapy. Peptide-based vaccines that neutralize circulating mediators or eliminate pathogenic cell populations have demonstrated efficacy in preclinical models and early clinical studies. In this review, we integrate emerging trends in HF research with recent advances in multicellular biology and therapeutic vaccination, proposing immunization as a unifying strategy to target cardiac remodeling at its roots.
PMID:42053567 | DOI:10.1152/physiol.00007.2026