It has been demonstrated that exposure to inflammation can reduce Cx40/43 functional expression and change gap junctions in the heart, whereas CKD causes systemic inflammation and activates TGFβ1/Smad2/3 and NLRP3 inflammasome (Sawaya et al., 2007; George et al., 2017). The gene discussed is TGFB1; the disease is chronic kidney disease.