Project description:Aim: The heart undergoes pathological remodelling under increased stress and neuronal imbalance. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in post-transcriptional regulation of genes in cardiac physiology and pathology. However, the mechanisms underlying miRNA-mediated regulation of pathological cardiac remodelling remain to be studied. This study aims to explore the function of endogenous microRNA-27b-3p (miR-27b-3p) in pathological cardiac remodelling. Methods and results: We found that miR-27b-3p expression was elevated in heart of patients with cardiac hypertrophy and in transverse aortic constriction (TAC)-induced cardiac hypertrophy mouse model. MiR-27b-3p-knockout mice showed significantly attenuated cardiac hypertrophy, fibrosis, and inflammation induced by two independent pathological cardiac hypertrophy models, TAC and Angiotensin II (Ang II) perfusion. Transcriptome sequencing analysis revealed that miR-27b-3p deletion significantly downregulated TAC-induced cardiac hypertrophy, fibrosis, and inflammatory genes. We identified fibroblast growth factor 1 (FGF1) as a novel miR-27b-3p target gene in the heart, which was upregulated in miR-27b-3p-null mice. Conclusions: Our study has demonstrated that miR-27b-3p induces pathological cardiac remodelling and suggests that inhibition of endogenous miR-27b-3p or administration of FGF1 might have the potential to suppress cardiac remodelling in a clinical setting.
Project description:Cardiac hypertrophy is an adaptive response to pressure overload aimed at maintaining cardiac function. However, prolonged hypertrophy significantly increases the risk of maladaptive cardiac remodeling and heart failure. The role of cardiac long non-coding RNAs in cardiac hypertrophy and cardiomyopathy is not well understood. lincRNA-p21 was induced in mouse and human cardiomyopathy tissue. Global and cardiac-specific lincRNA-p21 knockout significantly suppressed pressure overload-induced ventricular wall thickening, stress marker elevation, and deterioration of cardiac function. Genome-wide transcriptome analysis and transcriptional network analysis revealed that lincRNA-p21 acts in trans to stimulate the NFAT/MEF2 pathway. Mechanistically, lincRNA-p21 bound to the scaffold protein KAP1. lincRNA-p21 cardiac-specific knockout suppressed stress-induced nuclear accumulation of KAP1, and KAP1 knockdown attenuated cardiac hypertrophy and NFAT activation. KAP1 positively regulated pathological hypertrophy by physically interacting with NFATC4 to promote the overactive status of NFAT/MEF2 signaling. Importantly, GapmeR ASO depletion of lincRNA-p21 similarly inhibited cardiac hypertrophy and adverse remodeling, highlighting the therapeutic potential of inhibiting lincRNA-p21.
Project description:Purpose: The physiological cardiac hypertrophy is an adaptive condition that does not associate with myocyte cell death while pathological hypertrophy is a maladaptive condition associated with myocyte cell death. Alpha-2 macroglobulin (α-2M) an acute phase protein induces cardiac hypertrophy via the ERK1,2 and PI3K/Akt signaling. This study is aimed at exploring the miRNome of α-2M induced hypertrophied cardiomyocytes and to understand the role of miRNAs in determination of pathological and physiological hypertrophy. Methods: Hypertrophy was induced in H9c2 cardiomyoblasts using alpha-2 macroglobulin. The induction of hypertrophy is confirmed by microscopy and gene expression studies. Subsequently, the total RNA was isolated and small RNA sequencing was executed in Illumina HiSeq 2000. Results: Analysis of small RNA reads revealed the differential expression of a large set of miRNAs during hypertrophy. Among the differentially expressed candidates, miR-99 family (miR-99a, miR-99b and miR-100) showed significant downregulation upon α-2M treatment while isoproterenol treatment (pathological hypertrophy) upregulated their expression. The binding site for Egr1 transcription factor was identified in the promoter region of miR-99 family, and interestingly all miRNAs with Egr1 binding site proven by ChIP-Seq were downregulated during physiological hypertrophy Conclusions: The results proved Egr-1 mediated regulation of miR-99 family determines the uniqueness of pathological and physiological hypertrophy. Upregulated miR-99 expression during pathological hypertrophy suggests that it can be a valuable diagnostic marker and potential therapeutic target for cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure. Small RNA profiles of control and hypertrophied cardiomyocyte H9c2 cells were generated by deep sequencing using Illumina HiSeq 2000
Project description:We show that Bmx-deficiency reduces angiotensin II -induced cardiac hypertrophy and pathological gene expression Angiotensin II or NaCl were infuced for two weeks into wild-type and Bmx-deficient mice to induce cardiac hypertrophy
Project description:The heart grows in response to pathological and physiological stimuli, while the former often precedes cardiomyocyte loss and heart failure, the latter paradoxically protects the heart and enhances cardiomyogenesis. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are important in cardiac development and disease, less is known about their roles in physiological hypertrophy or cardiomyogenesis. The purpose of this study was to compare transcriptome profilings in exercise-induced physiological cardiac growth and stress-induced pathological cardiac growth. We identified a set of lncRNAs called long noncoding exercise associated cardiac transcripts (lncExACT). One of them, lncExACT1, whose cardiac expression was downregulated after exercise but upregulated after transverse aortic constriction. Inhibition of lncExACT1 induced physiolgoical cardiac growth while overexpression of lncExACT1 induced pathological hypertrophy and heart failure.
Project description:Purpose: The physiological cardiac hypertrophy is an adaptive condition that does not associate with myocyte cell death while pathological hypertrophy is a maladaptive condition associated with myocyte cell death. Alpha-2 macroglobulin (α-2M) an acute phase protein induces cardiac hypertrophy via the ERK1,2 and PI3K/Akt signaling. This study is aimed at exploring the miRNome of α-2M induced hypertrophied cardiomyocytes and to understand the role of miRNAs in determination of pathological and physiological hypertrophy. Methods: Hypertrophy was induced in H9c2 cardiomyoblasts using alpha-2 macroglobulin. The induction of hypertrophy is confirmed by microscopy and gene expression studies. Subsequently, the total RNA was isolated and small RNA sequencing was executed in Illumina HiSeq 2000. Results: Analysis of small RNA reads revealed the differential expression of a large set of miRNAs during hypertrophy. Among the differentially expressed candidates, miR-99 family (miR-99a, miR-99b and miR-100) showed significant downregulation upon α-2M treatment while isoproterenol treatment (pathological hypertrophy) upregulated their expression. The binding site for Egr1 transcription factor was identified in the promoter region of miR-99 family, and interestingly all miRNAs with Egr1 binding site proven by ChIP-Seq were downregulated during physiological hypertrophy Conclusions: The results proved Egr-1 mediated regulation of miR-99 family determines the uniqueness of pathological and physiological hypertrophy. Upregulated miR-99 expression during pathological hypertrophy suggests that it can be a valuable diagnostic marker and potential therapeutic target for cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure.
Project description:Pathological cardiac hypertrophy is featured by enhanced protein synthesis. Translation inhibition is effective in treating cardiac hypertrophy, yet with systematic side effect. We identified a cardiac-enriched LncRNA CARDINAL, when deleted, exacerbate transaortic constriction (TAC) induced hypertrophy.
Project description:Pathological cardiac hypertrophy is a major risk factor for the development of heart failure and sudden cardiac death, yet the molecular mechanism of cardiac hypertrophy is not fully understood. Recently, we found that the expression of Lin28a, a RNA-binding protein, was significantly upregulated during the early stages of cardiac hypertrophy. Interestingly, cardiac specific conditional deletion of Lin28a blunted pressure overload-induced cardiac hypertrophic responses. Given that Lin28a can bind to diverse mRNA to regulate their abundance and/or translation, we conducted RNA-seq to profile the cardiac transcriptome alteration without Lin28a under pressure overload. It showed that metabolic pathways, including glycolysis and biosynthetic pathway, were remarkedly affected. Thus, our study identifies Lin28a as a crucial regulator of cardiac hypertrophy via its role in metabolic programming.