Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Rationale
Pregnancy profoundly alters maternal physiology. The heart hypertrophies during pregnancy, but its metabolic adaptations, are not well understood.Objective
To determine the mechanisms underlying cardiac substrate use during pregnancy.Methods and results
We use here 13C glucose, 13C lactate, and 13C fatty acid tracing analyses to show that hearts in late pregnant mice increase fatty acid uptake and oxidation into the tricarboxylic acid cycle, while reducing glucose and lactate oxidation. Mitochondrial quantity, morphology, and function do not seem altered. Insulin signaling seems intact, and the abundance and localization of the major fatty acid and glucose transporters, CD36 (cluster of differentiation 36) and GLUT4 (glucose transporter type 4), are also unchanged. Rather, we find that the pregnancy hormone progesterone induces PDK4 (pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 4) in cardiomyocytes and that elevated PDK4 levels in late pregnancy lead to inhibition of PDH (pyruvate dehydrogenase) and pyruvate flux into the tricarboxylic acid cycle. Blocking PDK4 reverses the metabolic changes seen in hearts in late pregnancy.Conclusions
Taken together, these data indicate that the hormonal environment of late pregnancy promotes metabolic remodeling in the heart at the level of PDH, rather than at the level of insulin signaling.
SUBMITTER: Liu LX
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5722682 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Liu Laura X LX Rowe Glenn C GC Yang Steven S Li Jian J Damilano Federico F Chan Mun Chun MC Lu Wenyun W Jang Cholsoon C Wada Shogo S Morley Michael M Hesse Michael M Fleischmann Bernd K BK Rabinowitz Joshua D JD Das Saumya S Rosenzweig Anthony A Arany Zoltan Z
Circulation research 20170919 12
<h4>Rationale</h4>Pregnancy profoundly alters maternal physiology. The heart hypertrophies during pregnancy, but its metabolic adaptations, are not well understood.<h4>Objective</h4>To determine the mechanisms underlying cardiac substrate use during pregnancy.<h4>Methods and results</h4>We use here <sup>13</sup>C glucose, <sup>13</sup>C lactate, and <sup>13</sup>C fatty acid tracing analyses to show that hearts in late pregnant mice increase fatty acid uptake and oxidation into the tricarboxylic ...[more]