“…A functional UPS is critical for normal protein turnover and removes damaged or misfolded proteins in a multistep process (24,39,66,93). Dysfunction of the UPS is rapidly gaining recognition as a potentially important mechanism involved in the pathogenesis of a number of cardiac diseases, including heart failure (38,71,88,93,96,101), cardiomyopathies (12,44,71,78), hypertrophy (18,29,54,72), atrophy (2,72), ischemia-reperfusion (41,67), and atherosclerosis (30), providing a strong rationale for further study of specific mechanisms of proteasome impairment and identification of specific targets for therapy. In vitro and animal models have proven highly valuable in assessing effects of various stressors on the UPS and, in some cases, suggesting a causal link between defective protein clearance and disease phenotypes (14,41,46).…”