The functional capacity of the heart is dictated by its proteome, and in recent years exciting discoveries have linked proteome data, in particular covalent protein modifications, with important aspects of cardiac function. Continuing advances in technology, instrumentation, and the sophistication of proteomics studies promises yet greater understanding and the generation of new biomarkers and therapeutic targets for cardiac diseases. Cardiomyopathy may occur due to inherited or environmental factors and is a progressive process that often coincides with other complicated risk factors such as low exercise capacity, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia. Therefore, understanding the deterioration of cardiac performance is a particularly challenging area of research.

We warmly invite investigators to contribute original research articles and review articles that enhance understanding of cardiomyopathy or the protective effects of interventions including exercise and dietary manipulations. We are particularly interested in articles that characterise posttranslational modifications in the context of physiological growth or pathophysiological cardiac hypertrophy and reports of new technologies or methods for studying protein modification. Profiling of new models relevant to this field will also be of interest, as well as functional proteomic studies assessing the impact of manipulating protein targets in model systems. Ultimately, we aim for this special issue to serve as a point of reference for burgeoning themes in cardiac proteomics. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Proteomic analysis of models of cardiomyopathy or cardioprotection
• Proteomic analysis of cardiac development and cardiomyocyte differentiation
• Proteomic characterisation of human explant samples
• Novel protein biomarkers in cardiovascular disease
• Characterisation of protein species using 2D electrophoresis and mass spectrometry
• Technologies for the enrichment and characterisation of modified peptides
• Mass spectrometry characterisation of protein species using top-down, middle-down, or bottom-up approaches
• Bioinformatic tools specific to the interrogation of proteomics data
• Proteomic analysis of manipulating protein targets model systems
• Targeted mass spectrometry approaches for monitoring modified proteins

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal’s Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/bmri/cardiology/prot/ according to the following timetable: