Do PPARs play a role in cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure?

Energy metabolic pathways are intimately linked to cardiac physiology and are perturbed in disease states. Mitochondrial fatty acid β-oxidation, the primary pathway for ATP production in the healthy heart, is regulated in large part through transcriptional mechanisms by peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs). Although controversy surrounds the relative cardiac expression and activity levels of the three PPAR isoforms, α, β/δ and γ, pharmaceutical modulation of PPARs, and by extension, cardiac metabolism and lipid handling, can represent a potential strategy to combat metabolic aspects of heart disease.