New redox-related arrows in the arsenal of cardiac disease treatment

While great strides have been made to improve the poor prognosis with cardiac disease, heart failure in particular, cardiac affections still remain the most prevalent, difficult-to-treat, and costly human pathologies in the western world. At rest, the heart produces a significant oxidative environment inside diverse cell compartments, due to its high-energy demand. Cardiac cells have an exquisite control system to deal with this constant redox stress. However, persistent hemodynamic alterations can compromise these mechanisms, fueling further myocardial redox imbalance and dysfunction. Still, this would be a one-sided and incomplete view, because the physiological role of reactive oxygen species (ROS) should be considered as well. Indeed, ROS are multipurpose agents, serving signaling and cell defense tasks too, and, similar to antioxidants, these functions can be highly compartmentalized within the cell. The present Forum was designed to collect cutting-edge research concerning when and how to effectively counter excessive oxidative burden to preserve cardiac structure and/or to improve function, under conditions of ordinary or extraordinary stress. Another major objective was to unravel old and new intersections between different myocardial processes by which ROS may act as "on" or "off" switches, and in doing so, dictating function, always with an eye on possible, immediate therapeutic applications, as suggested by the title of the Forum itself, that is, Cardiac Therapeutics. Antioxid. Redox Signal. 21, 1945-1948.