Considering NCX inhibition as a promising therapeutic strategy, this might be of translational relevance, since major cardiac diseases like heart failure or atrial fibrillation are accompanied by NCX upregulation, whereas other specific cardiac disease entities, like the postinfarction (Zhang et al., 1996; Quinn et al., 2003) and diabetic cardiomyopathy (Schaffer et al., 1997; Hattori et al., 2000) exhibit a reduced NCX function, at least in animal models. Here, TLX2 is linked to diabetic cardiomyopathy.