The uptake and release of calcium by heart mitochondria.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Harris EJ
PROVIDER: S-EPMC1183792 | biostudies-other | 1977 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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Project description:Arrhythmogenesis during heart failure is a major clinical problem. Regional electrical gradients produce arrhythmias, and cellular ionic transmembrane gradients are its originators. We investigated whether the nanoscale mechanosensitive properties of cardiomyocytes from failing hearts have a bearing upon the initiation of abnormal electrical activity. Hydrojets through a nanopipette indent specific locations on the sarcolemma and initiate intracellular calcium release in both healthy and heart failure cardiomyocytes, as well as in human failing cardiomyocytes. In healthy cells, calcium is locally confined, whereas in failing cardiomyocytes, calcium propagates. Heart failure progressively stiffens the membrane and displaces sub-sarcolemmal mitochondria. Colchicine in healthy cells mimics the failing condition by stiffening the cells, disrupting microtubules, shifting mitochondria, and causing calcium release. Uncoupling the mitochondrial proton gradient abolished calcium initiation in both failing and colchicine-treated cells. We propose the disruption of microtubule-dependent mitochondrial mechanosensor microdomains as a mechanism for abnormal calcium release in failing heart.
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Project description:Stable calcium-induced calcium release (CICR) is critical for maintaining normal cellular contraction during cardiac excitation-contraction coupling. The fundamental element of CICR in the heart is the calcium (Ca(2+)) spark, which arises from a cluster of ryanodine receptors (RyR). Opening of these RyR clusters is triggered to produce a local, regenerative release of Ca(2+) from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR). The Ca(2+) leak out of the SR is an important process for cellular Ca(2+) management, and it is critically influenced by spark fidelity, i.e., the probability that a spontaneous RyR opening triggers a Ca(2+) spark. Here, we present a detailed, three-dimensional model of a cardiac Ca(2+) release unit that incorporates diffusion, intracellular buffering systems, and stochastically gated ion channels. The model exhibits realistic Ca(2+) sparks and robust Ca(2+) spark termination across a wide range of geometries and conditions. Furthermore, the model captures the details of Ca(2+) spark and nonspark-based SR Ca(2+) leak, and it produces normal excitation-contraction coupling gain. We show that SR luminal Ca(2+)-dependent regulation of the RyR is not critical for spark termination, but it can explain the exponential rise in the SR Ca(2+) leak-load relationship demonstrated in previous experimental work. Perturbations to subspace dimensions, which have been observed in experimental models of disease, strongly alter Ca(2+) spark dynamics. In addition, we find that the structure of RyR clusters also influences Ca(2+) release properties due to variations in inter-RyR coupling via local subspace Ca(2+) concentration ([Ca(2+)]ss). These results are illustrated for RyR clusters based on super-resolution stimulated emission depletion microscopy. Finally, we present a believed-novel approach by which the spark fidelity of a RyR cluster can be predicted from structural information of the cluster using the maximum eigenvalue of its adjacency matrix. These results provide critical insights into CICR dynamics in heart, under normal and pathological conditions.
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Project description:Digitoxin and other cardiac glycosides are important, centuries-old drugs for treating congestive heart failure. However, the mechanism of action of these compounds is still being elucidated. Calcium is known to potentiate the toxicity of these drugs, and we have hypothesized that digitoxin might mediate calcium entry into cells. We report here that digitoxin molecules mediate calcium entry into intact cells. Multimers of digitoxin molecules also are able to form calcium channels in pure planar phospholipid bilayers. These digitoxin channels are blocked by Al(3+) and La(3+) but not by Mg(2+) or the classical l-type calcium channel blocker, nitrendipine. In bilayers, we find that the chemistry of the lipid affects the kinetics of the digitoxin channel activity, but not the cation selectivity. Antibodies against digitoxin promptly neutralize digitoxin channels in both cells and bilayers. We propose that these digitoxin calcium channels may be part of the mechanism by which digitoxin and other active cardiac glycosides, such as digoxin, exert system-wide actions at and above the therapeutic concentration range.
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Project description:In cardiac myocytes, excitation-contraction coupling depends upon sarcoplasmic reticular Ca2+ release triggered by Ca2+ influx through L-type Ca2+ channels. Although Na+-Ca2+ exchange (NCX) is essential for Ca2+ extrusion, its participation in the trigger process of excitation-contraction coupling is controversial. To investigate the role of NCX in triggering, we examined Ca2+ sparks in ventricular cardiomyocytes isolated from wild-type (WT) and cardiac-specific NCX knockout (KO) mice. Myocytes from young NCX KO mice are known to exhibit normal resting cytosolic Ca2+ and normal Ca2+ transients despite reduced L-type Ca2+ current. We loaded myocytes with fluo-3 to image Ca2+ sparks using confocal microscopy in line-scan mode. The frequency of spontaneous Ca2+ sparks was reduced in KO myocytes compared with WT. However, spark amplitude and width were increased in KO mice. Permeabilizing the myocytes with saponin eliminated differences between spontaneous sparks in WT and KO mice. These results suggest that sarcolemmal processes are responsible for the reduced spark frequency and increased spark width and amplitude in KO mice. When myocytes were loaded with 1 mM fluo-3 and 3 mM EGTA via the patch pipette to buffer diadic cleft Ca2+, the number of sparks triggered by action potentials was reduced by 60% in KO cells compared to WT cells, despite similar SR Ca2+ content in both cell types. When EGTA was omitted from the pipette solution, the number of sparks triggered in KO and WT myocytes was similar. Although the number of sparks was restored in KO cells, Ca2+ release was asynchronous. These results suggest that high subsarcolemmal Ca2+ is required to ensure synchronous triggering with short spark latency in the absence of NCX. In WT mice, high subsarcolemmal Ca2+ is not required for synchronous triggering, because NCX is capable of priming the diadic cleft with sufficient Ca2+ for normal triggering, even when subsarcolemmal Ca(2+) is lowered by EGTA. Thus, reducing subsarcolemmal Ca2+ with EGTA in NCX KO mice reveals the dependence of Ca2+ release on NCX.
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Project description:Ca2+ influx into mitochondria is mediated by the mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU), whose identity was recently revealed as a 40-kDa protein that along with other proteins forms the mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake machinery. The MCU is a Ca2+-conducting channel spanning the inner mitochondrial membrane. Here, deletion of the MCU completely inhibited Ca2+ uptake in liver, heart, and skeletal muscle mitochondria. However, in brain nonsynaptic and synaptic mitochondria from neuronal somata/glial cells and nerve terminals, respectively, the MCU deletion slowed, but did not completely block, Ca2+ uptake. Under resting conditions, brain MCU-KO mitochondria remained polarized, and in brain MCU-KO mitochondria, the electrophoretic Ca2+ ionophore ETH129 significantly accelerated Ca2+ uptake. The residual Ca2+ uptake in brain MCU-KO mitochondria was insensitive to inhibitors of mitochondrial Na+/Ca2+ exchanger and ryanodine receptor (CGP37157 and dantrolene, respectively), but was blocked by the MCU inhibitor Ru360. Respiration of WT and MCU-KO brain mitochondria was similar except that for mitochondria that oxidized pyruvate and malate, Ca2+ more strongly inhibited respiration in WT than in MCU-KO mitochondria. Of note, the MCU deletion significantly attenuated but did not completely prevent induction of the permeability transition pore (PTP) in brain mitochondria. Expression level of cyclophilin D and ATP content in mitochondria, two factors that modulate PTP induction, were unaffected by MCU-KO, whereas ADP was lower in MCU-KO than in WT brain mitochondria. Our results suggest the presence of an MCU-independent Ca2+ uptake pathway in brain mitochondria that mediates residual Ca2+ influx and induction of PTP in a fraction of the mitochondrial population.
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Project description:Rods and cones use intracellular Ca2+ to regulate many functions, including phototransduction and neurotransmission. The Mitochondrial Calcium Uniporter (MCU) complex is thought to be the primary pathway for Ca2+ entry into mitochondria in eukaryotes. We investigate the hypothesis that mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake via MCU influences phototransduction and energy metabolism in photoreceptors using a mcu-/- zebrafish and a rod photoreceptor-specific Mcu-/- mouse. Using genetically encoded Ca2+ sensors to directly examine Ca2+ uptake in zebrafish cone mitochondria, we found that loss of MCU reduces but does not eliminate mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake. Loss of MCU does not lead to photoreceptor degeneration, mildly affects mitochondrial metabolism, and does not alter physiological responses to light, even in the absence of the Na+/Ca2+, K+ exchanger. Our results reveal that MCU is dispensable for vertebrate photoreceptor function, consistent with its low expression and the presence of an alternative pathway for Ca2+ uptake into photoreceptor mitochondria.
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Project description:Background Translocation of miR-181c into cardiac mitochondria downregulates the mitochondrial gene, mt-COX1. miR-181c/d-/- hearts experience less oxidative stress during ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) and are protected against I/R injury. Additionally, miR-181c overexpression can increase mitochondrial matrix Ca2+ ([Ca2+]m), but the mechanism by which miR-181c regulates [Ca2+]m is unknown. Methods and Results By RNA sequencing and analysis, here we show that hearts from miR-181c/d-/- mice overexpress nuclear-encoded Ca2+ regulatory and metabolic pathway genes, suggesting that alterations in miR-181c and mt-COX1 perturb mitochondria-to-nucleus retrograde signaling and [Ca2+]m regulation. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction validation of transcription factors that are known to initiate retrograde signaling revealed significantly higher Sp1 (specificity protein) expression in the miR-181c/d-/- hearts. Furthermore, an association of Sp1 with the promoter region of MICU1 was confirmed by chromatin immunoprecipitation-quantitative polymerase chain reaction and higher expression of MICU1 was found in the miR-181c/d-/- hearts. Conversely, downregulation of Sp1 by small interfering RNA decreased MICU1 expression in neonatal mouse ventricular myocytes. Changes in PDH activity provided evidence for a change in [Ca2+]m via the miR-181c/MICU1 axis. Moreover, this mechanism was implicated in the pathology of I/R injury. When MICU1 was knocked down in the miR-181c/d-/- heart by lentiviral expression of a short-hairpin RNA against MICU1, cardioprotective effects against I/R injury were abrogated. Furthermore, using an in vitro I/R model in miR-181c/d-/- neonatal mouse ventricular myocytes, we confirmed the contribution of both Sp1 and MICU1 in ischemic injury. Conclusions miR-181c regulates mt-COX1, which in turn regulates MICU1 expression through the Sp1-mediated mitochondria-to-nucleus retrograde pathway. Loss of miR-181c can protect the heart from I/R injury by modulating [Ca2+]m through the upregulation of MICU1.
| S-EPMC6951067 | biostudies-literature