Abstract: The present invention relates to a variety of genes abnormally expressed in heart tissue as well as to fragments of such genes. Assessment of the expression level of these genes may be used for testing the predisposition of mammals and preferably humans for a heart disease or for an acute state of such a disease. Preferred diseases in accordance with the invention are congestive heart failure, dilative cardiomyopathy, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and ischemic cardiomyopathy. The present invention further relates to methods of identifying compounds capable of normalizing the expression level of the aforementioned genes and of further genes affected by the abnormal expression. The identified compounds may be used for formulating compositions, preferably pharmaceutical compositions for preventing or treating diseases. They may also be used as lead compounds for the development of medicaments having an improved efficiency, a longer half-life, a decreased toxicity etc.

Abstract: The present invention relates to improved variants of soluble pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ)-dependent glucose dehydrogenases (s-GDH), to genes encoding mutated s-GDH, to mutant proteins of s-GDH with improved substrate specificity for glucose, and to different applications of these s-GDH variants, particularly for determining concentrations of sugar, especially of glucose in a sample.