CRISPR/Cas9 Transcription Factor Knockout Screen for Regulators of In Vitro Cardiac Differentiation
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ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens
PROVIDER: GSE245496 | GEO | 2024/09/06
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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Project description:Mammalian hearts had the capability to regenerate cardiomyocyte and completely recover after heart injury within a limited time window after birth. It has been shown that sphingosine 1-phospahte receptor 1 (S1pr1) was highly expressed in cardiomyocytes and played an important role in heart development and pathological cardiac remodeling. Herein, we aim to investigate the role of CM-S1pr1 for cardiac regeneration and tissue repair after heart injury. We generated cardiomyocyte (CM)-specific S1pr1 knock-out mice and showed that CM-specific S1pr1 loss-of-function significantly severely reduced cardiomyocyte proliferation and heart regeneration in neonatal mice after both apex resection and myocardial infarction, whereas S1pr1 gain-of-function by AAV9-mediated CM-specific overexpression of S1pr1 significantly boosted cardiac regeneration and improved cardiac functions after heart injuries. We next identified that S1pr1 activated AKT/mTOR/CyclinD1 and Bcl-2 signaling pathways, and thus promoted cardiomyocyte proliferation and inhibited CM apoptosis, respectively.Of note, we applied CM-targeted gene therapy by AAV9-cTNT to specifically overexpress S1pr1 in cardiomyocytes and achieved an efficient S1pr1 overexpression in CMs in vivo. This CM-targeted strategy to overexpress S1pr1 significantly enhanced cardiac regeneration and improved cardiac functions after myocardial infarction in an adult mouse model, suggesting a potential strategy to boost adult cardiac regeneration in vivo.
2024-08-01 | GSE241722 | GEO
Project description:Cardiomyocyte maturation is crucial for generating adult cardiomyocytes and the application of human pluripotent stem cell derived-cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs). However, regulation at the cis-regulatory element level, and its role in heart disease remain unclear. Alpha-actinin 2 (ACTN2) levels increase during CM maturation. Here, we investigate a clinically relevant, conserved ACTN2 enhancer’s effects on CM maturation using hPSC and mouse models. Heterozygous ACTN2 enhancer deletion led to abnormal CM morphology, reduced function, and mitochondrial respiration. Transcriptomic analyses in vitro and in vivo showed disrupted CM maturation and upregulated anabolic mammalian target for rapamycin (mTOR) signaling promoting senescence and hindering maturation. As confirmation, ACTN2 enhancer deletion induced heat shock protein 90A expression, a chaperone mediating mTOR activation. Conversely, targeting the ACTN2 enhancer via enhancer CRISPR activation (enCRISPRa) promoted hPSC-CM maturation. Our studies reveal the transcriptional enhancer’s role in cardiac maturation and disease, offering insights into potentially fine-tuning gene expression to modulate cardiomyocyte physiology.
2024-05-24 | GSE266307 | GEO
Project description:Cardiomyocyte maturation is crucial for generating adult cardiomyocytes and the application of human pluripotent stem cell derived-cardiomyocytes (hPSC-CMs). However, regulation at the cis-regulatory element level, and its role in heart disease remain unclear. Alpha-actinin 2 (ACTN2) levels increase during CM maturation. Here, we investigate a clinically relevant, conserved ACTN2 enhancer’s effects on CM maturation using hPSC and mouse models. Heterozygous ACTN2 enhancer deletion led to abnormal CM morphology, reduced function, and mitochondrial respiration. Transcriptomic analyses in vitro and in vivo showed disrupted CM maturation and upregulated anabolic mammalian target for rapamycin (mTOR) signaling promoting senescence and hindering maturation. As confirmation, ACTN2 enhancer deletion induced heat shock protein 90A expression, a chaperone mediating mTOR activation. Conversely, targeting the ACTN2 enhancer via enhancer CRISPR activation (enCRISPRa) promoted hPSC-CM maturation. Our studies reveal the transcriptional enhancer’s role in cardiac maturation and disease, offering insights into potentially fine-tuning gene expression to modulate cardiomyocyte physiology.
2024-05-24 | GSE266306 | GEO
Project description:Proinsulin is the precursor of insulin in pancreatic beta cells. Altered proinsulin and proinsulin to insulin ratio mark beta cell dysfunction, predictuing disease progression into type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Of essential role for beta cell function, knowledge about proinsulin production and its role in disease are currently very limited. Using genome wide CRISPR screen, we identified 84 proinsulin regulators including classical protein convertases Pcsk1 and Cpe, and novel factors like Pdia6. Among the list 29 proinsulin regulators were trajectory genes involved in disease progression in obesity and type 2 diabetes in humans. In vivo mouse genetics study revealed unique genetic architecture and quantitative trait loci (QTLs) modulating plasma proinsulin levels. Integrative analyzing and mapping of the QTL signals directly pinpointed to proinsulin regulators identified from the CRISPR screen, which in return greatly improved resolution of the mouse genetic study. 4 out of 5 overlapped genes can be individually validated. Knocking down the leading hits Pdia6 leads to decreased proinsulin content and remarkable loss of proinsulin granules in beta cells. Consequently, proinsulin secretion was greatly decreased. Mechanistically, protein translation rate was greatly impaired after knocking down Pdia6. Our study demonstrated the power of combining in vitro functional genomics with in vivo mouse genetics study to identify proinsulin regulatory network in pancreatic beta cells.
2023-11-15 | GSE245845 | GEO
Project description: Not available
| S-EPMC10811322 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Energy metabolism is a key aspect of cardiomyocyte biology. Human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CM) are a promising tool for biomedical application, but they are immature and have not undergone metabolic shift related to early postnatal development. Cultivation of hiPSC-CM in 3D engineered heart tissue (EHT) format leads to morphological maturation. This study compared the mitochondrial and metabolic state of hiPSC-CM in standard 2D culture and the EHT format and determined the influence of contractile activity. HiPSC-CM in EHTs showed ~2-fold higher number of mitochondria (electron microscopy), mitochondrial mass (mitotracker), DNA (Mt-ND1, Mt-ND2), and protein abundance (proteome) than in 2D culture. While hiPSC-CM exhibited the principal ability to use glucose, lactate and fatty acids as energy substrates irrespective of culture format, hiPSC-CM in 3D performed more oxidation of glucose, lactate and fatty acid, and less anaerobic glycolysis. The increase in mitochondrial mass and DNA in 3D was diminished by pharmacological inhibition of contractile force, suggesting that contractile work participates in mitochondrial development hiPSC-CM. In conclusion, contractile work in the EHT format contributes to metabolic maturation of hiPSC-CM.
2018-03-06 | PXD008205 | Pride
Project description:Background: Cardiac kinases play a critical role in the development of heart failure, and represent potential tractable therapeutic targets. However, only a very small fraction of the cardiac kinome has been investigated. To identify novel cardiac kinases involved in heart failure, we employed an integrated transcriptomics and bioinformatics analysis and identified Homeodomain-Interacting Protein Kinase 2 (HIPK2) as a novel candidate kinase. The role of HIPK2 in cardiac biology is unknown. Methods: We used the Expression2Kinase algorithm for the screening of kinase targets. To determine the role of HIPK2 in the heart, we generated cardiomyocyte-specific HIPK2 knockout (CM-KO) and heterozygous (CM-Het) mice. Heart function was examined by echocardiography and related cellular and molecular mechanisms were examined. Adeno-associated virus serotype 9 (AAV9) carrying cardiac-specific constitutively active MEK1 (TnT-MEK1-CA) were administrated to rescue cardiac dysfunction in CM-KOs. Results: To our knowledge, this is the first study to define the role of HIPK2 in cardiac biology. Using multiple HIPK2 loss-of-function mouse models, we demonstrated that reduction of HIPK2 in cardiomyocytes leads to cardiac dysfunction—suggesting a causal role in heart failure. Importantly, cardiac dysfunction in HIPK2 KOs developed with advancing age, but not during development. In addition, CM-KO and CM-Het exhibited a gene dose-response relationship of cardiomyocyte HIPK2 on heart function. HIPK2 expression in the heart was significantly reduced in human end-stage ischemic cardiomyopathy compared to non-failing myocardium, suggesting a clinical relevance of HIPK2 in cardiac biology. In vitro studies with neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes corroborated the in vivo findings. Specifically, adenovirus-mediated overexpression of HIPK2 suppressed the expression of heart failure markers, NPPA and NPPB, at basal condition and abolished phenylephrine-induced pathological gene expression. An array of mechanistic studies revealed impaired ERK1/2 signaling in HIPK2 deficient hearts. In vivo rescue experiment with AAV9 TnT-MEK1-CA nearly abolished the detrimental phenotype of KOs suggesting that impaired ERK signaling mediated apoptosis as the key factor driving the detrimental phenotype in CM-KO hearts. Conclusions: Taken together, these findings suggest that cardiomyocyte HIPK2 is required to maintain normal cardiac function via ERK signaling
2019-08-27 | GSE136308 | GEO
Project description:Human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) have been widely used for disease modeling and drug cardiotoxicity screening. To this end, we recently developed human cardiac organoids (hCOs) for modeling human myocardium. Here, we perform a transcriptomic analysis of various in vitro hiPSC-CM platforms (2D iPSC-CM, 3D iPSC-CM and hCOs) to deduce strengths and limitations of these in vitro models. We further compared iPSC-CM models to human myocardium samples. Our data shows that the 3D in vitro environment of 3D hiPSC-CMs and hCOs stimulates expression of genes associated with tissue formation. hCOs demonstrated diverse physiologically relevant cellular functions compared to hiPSC-CM only models. Including other cardiac cell types within hCOs led to more transcriptomic similarly to adult myocardium. hCOs lack matured cardiomyocytes and immune cells which limits a complete replication of human adult myocardium. In conclusion, 3D hCOs are transcriptomically similar to myocardium, and future developments of engineered 3D cardiac models would benefit from diversifying cell populations, especially immune cells.
2021-08-31 | GSE181397 | GEO
Project description:The differentiation of B cells into antibody-secreting cells depends on cell division-coupled, epigenetic and other cellular processes that are incompletely understood. We have developed a CRISPR/Cas9-based screen that models an early stage of T cell-dependent plasma cell differentiation and measures B cell survival or proliferation versus the formation of CD138+ plasmablasts. Here, we refined and extended this screen to more than 500 candidate genes that are highly expressed in plasma cells. Among known genes whose deletion preferentially affected plasmablast formation were the transcriptional regulators Prdm1, Irf4 and Pou2af1, and the Ern1 gene encoding the ER stress sensor IRE1a. Moreover, we newly identified several genes involved in NF-kB or p38 signaling (Pim2, Nfkbia, Mapk14), vesicle trafficking (Arf4, Preb) and epigenetic regulators that form part of the NuRD complexes (Hdac1, Mta2, Mbd2). Defective plasmablast formation caused by Ern1 deletion could not be rescued by spliced XBP1 (XBP1s), a transcription factor dependent on and downstream of IRE1a, suggesting that in early plasma cell differentiation IRE1a acts independently of XBP1s. The deletion of ARF4, a small GTPase required for ER-to-Golgi transport, impaired plasmablast formation by blocking antibody secretion. Plasmablast formation after Hdac1 deletion was consistently reduced by about 50%, while deletion of the closely related Hdac2 gene had no effect. Hdac1 knock-out led to strongly perturbed protein expression of antagonistic transcription factors that specify plasma cell versus B cell identity (by decreasing IRF4 and BLIMP1 and increasing BACH2 and PAX5). Taken together, our results highlight specific and non-redundant roles for Ern1, Arf4 and Hdac1 in the early steps of plasma cell differentiation.
2022-12-22 | PXD038201 | Pride
Project description:Cardiac differentiation involves a stepwise clearance of repressors and fate-restricting regulators through the modulation of BMP/Wnt-signaling pathways. However, the mechanisms and how regulatory roadblocks are removed with specific developmental signaling pathways remain unclear. Here, we performed a genome-wide CRISPR screen to uncover essential regulators of cardiomyocyte specification in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and identify NF2, a Moesin-Ezrin-Radixin Like (MERLIN) Tumor Suppressor, as an upstream driver of cardiomyocyte specification. Transcriptional regulation and trajectory inference from NF2-null cells reveal the loss of cardiomyocyte identity and the acquisition of non-mesodermal identity. Sustained elevation of early mesoderm lineage repressor SOX2 and upregulation of late anti-cardiac regulators CDX2, MSX1 in NF2 knockout cells reflect a necessary role for NF2 in removing regulatory roadblocks. Since YAP is a known repressor of mesendoderm genes, we found that NF2 and AMOT cooperatively bind to YAP during mesendoderm formation, thereby preventing YAP activation independent on canonical MST-LATS1 kinase activity. Mechanistically, cardiomyocyte lineage identity was rescued by wild-type and NF2 Serine-518 phospho-mutants, but not NF2 FERM-domain blue-box mutants, showing that the critical FERM domain-dependent formation of the AMOT-NF2-YAP scaffold complex at the adherens junction is required for cardiomyocyte lineage differentiation. These results provide mechanistic insight into the essential role of NF2 for cardiomyocyte lineage specification by sequestering the repressive effect of YAP and relieving regulatory roadblocks en route to cardiomyocytes.
2024-04-30 | GSE244362 | GEO