Compounds known to play an important role in how insects develop from larvae to adults have been shown in mice to be effective in preventing and reducing cardiac cell overgrowth and irregular heart rhythms, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis.

Cardiologist and cell biologist Nipavan Chiamvimonvat and entomology professor Bruce Hammock led a 16-member team that identified epoxide hydrolase inhibitors as novel and powerful chemical compounds that block an immune system protein known to play a role in cardiac cell overgrowth and arrhythmias. The findings are published this week in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A.

The work is important because it could lead to important new medications for treating enlargement of the heart and heart arrhythmias -- conditions that have few treatment options and ultimately progress to heart failure and sudden cardiac death.

"By blocking the pathway that leads to overgrowth of cardiac cells, we have shown that it is possible to prevent the progressive deterioration of heart function and the development of abnormal heart rhythms," said Chiamvimonvat, a physician who specializes in cardiac rhythm abnormalities and investigates the cellular and molecular mechanisms leading to arrhythmia.

The researchers used mice to study soluble epoxide hydrolase inhibitors isolated in the laboratory of Bruce Hammock, a distinguished professor of entomology who directs the UC Davis Superfund Basic Research Program and is principal investigator of the Biotechnology Training Program.

The work drew primary funding support from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Partial support came from the National Institute on Environmental Health Sciences and grants from UC Davis Health System and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant to foster translational research.