Atrial fibrillation is the most frequent cardiac arrhythmia with increasing prevalence and incidence. It increases the risk of heart failure, stroke, and peripheral embolism. The type of atrial fibrillation depends on how often atrial fibrillation occurs and how it responds to treatment. Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation is a brief event that usually stops in less than 24 hours but may last up to a week. Often, especially without treatment, atrial fibrillation may progress from paroxysmal to persistent to long-term. At this point, atrial fibrillation does not get better and becomes permanent. Since the heart tissue of the patients undergoes long-term stress conditions, some type of programmed cell death was expected to be detected in the heart samples.

Our study included 13 patients with permanent atrial fibrillation, 10 patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, and 11 corresponding controls. The left atrial appendage of each patient was resected during the surgical ablation. Tissue samples were processed for total protein isolation and protein levels were analyzed using western blot analysis.

In our analyses, we have tested protein levels of iron metabolism-related molecules, molecules to be known for their role in ferroptosis as well as apoptotic cell markers. However, we have detected only slight changes that were not statistically significant and therefore have not obtained significant indication of active ferroptosis in our samples.

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​This study was funded by a research program of Charles University in Prague COOPERATIO 31 and by Programme EXCELES, ID Project No. LX22NPO5104 - Funded by the European Union (Next Generation EU).