Editorial commentary: A heartbreaking relationship: Clonal hematopoiesis and heart failure

The concise review by Kenneth Walsh and colleagues summarizes the clinical association of clonal hematopoiesis and chronic heart failure, and the mechanistic insights into this unexpected relation of mutated blood cells and heart failure progression, which shows great promise to lead into therapeutic applications in the future [1]. While the existence of dominant blood cell clones in healthy individuals was described more than 25 years ago [4], only in recent years has the presence of recurrent somatic mutations in the hematopoietic system leading to the expansion of the mutated blood cell clone been widely recognized [5]. Nicholas Chavkin et al. have excellently addressed these and other questions in the context of the current clinical and experimental view of the detrimental relationship of blood stem cell mutations and chronic heart failure progression [1].