Heart failure is often preceded by left ventricular hypertrophy, which is characterized by an increase in the size of individual cardiac myocytes and re-expression of fetal cardiac genes, such as atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) and B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP; Magga et al., 1998; Heineke and Molkentin, 2006). Here, NPPA is linked to left ventricular hypertrophy.