Extracellular Vesicles From Epicardial Fat Facilitate Atrial Fibrillation

The role of epicardial fat (eFat)-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) in the pathogenesis of atrial fibrillation (AF) has never been studied. We tested the hypothesis that eFat-EVs transmit proinflammatory, profibrotic, and proarrhythmic molecules that induce atrial myopathy and fibrillation.We collected eFat specimens from patients with (n=32) and without AF (n=30) during elective heart surgery. eFat samples were grown as organ cultures, and...