Protective effect of a GRK5 polymorphism on heart failure and its interaction with beta-adrenergic receptor antagonists

Evaluation of: Liggett SB, Cresci S, Kelly RJ et at.: A GRK5 polymorphism that inhibits P-adrenergic receptor signaling is protective in heart failure. Nat. Med. 14, 510-517 (2008). beta-adrenoceptor blockade therapy was developed for the treatment of hypertension but is now also a cornerstone in the treatment of heart failure. Based on the mechanisms of action and current knowledge of pathway signaling, Ligget et al. hypothesized that genetic variants within G-protein coupled receptor kinases might alter disease course and response to p-adrenoceptor blockade therapy. Following a multistep approach, a common variant in GRK5 was identified as being important in vitro and in vivo (mouse model) in beta-adrenergic desensitization, and was epidemiologically related to survival and therapy response in African-Americans. Although such a variety of research approaches is appealing, owing to the large number of used methods readers remain puzzled on some issues because it is not possible to give all details of each individual study. Therefore, interpretation of the overwhelming amount of results is difficult. In an era of shifting emphasis from classic hypothesis driven pharmacogenetics to genome-wide association studies, this study shows that hypothesis driven translational research is still of high value, especially in phenotypes as investigated here.