UCHL1 protects against ischemic heart injury via activating HIF-1α signal pathway.

Ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal esterase L1 (UCHL1) has been thought to be a neuron specific protein and shown to play critical roles in Parkinson's Disease and stroke via de-ubiquiting and stabilizing key pathological proteins, such as α-synuclein. In the present study, we found that UCHL1 was significantly increased in both mouse and human cardiomyocytes following myocardial infarction (MI). When LDN-57444, a pharmacological inhibitor of UCHL1, was used to treat mice subjected to MI surgery, we found that administration of LDN-57444 compromised cardiac function when compared with vehicle treated hearts, suggesting a potential protective role of UCHL1 in response to MI.

MG53 suppresses NF-κB activation to mitigate age-related heart failure.

Aging is associated with chronic oxidative stress and inflammation that affect tissue repair and regeneration capacity. MG53 is a TRIM family protein that facilitates repair of cell membrane injury in a redox-dependent manner. Here, we demonstrate that the expression of MG53 was reduced in failing human hearts and aged mouse hearts, concomitant with elevated NF-κB activation.

Paracardial fat remodeling affects systemic metabolism through alcohol dehydrogenase 1.

The relationship between adiposity and metabolic health is well established. However, very little is known about the fat depot, known as paracardial fat (pCF), located superior to and surrounding the heart. Here, we show that pCF remodels with aging and a high-fat diet and that the size and function of this depot are controlled by alcohol dehydrogenase 1 (ADH1), an enzyme that oxidizes retinol into retinaldehyde.

Impaired neuronal sodium channels cause intranodal conduction failure and reentrant arrhythmias in human sinoatrial node.

Mechanisms for human sinoatrial node (SAN) dysfunction are poorly understood and whether human SAN excitability requires voltage-gated sodium channels (Nav) remains controversial. Here, we report that neuronal (n)Nav blockade and selective nNav1.6 blockade during high-resolution optical mapping in explanted human hearts depress intranodal SAN conduction, which worsens during autonomic stimulation and overdrive suppression to conduction failure.

Ankyrin-B dysfunction predisposes to arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy and is amenable to therapy.

Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM) is an inherited arrhythmia syndrome characterized by severe structural and electrical cardiac phenotypes, including myocardial fibrofatty replacement and sudden cardiac death. Clinical management of ACM is largely palliative, owing to an absence of therapies that target its underlying pathophysiology, which stems partially from our limited insight into the condition. Following identification of deceased ACM probands possessing ANK2 rare variants and evidence of ankyrin-B loss of function on cardiac tissue analysis, an ANK2 mouse model was found to develop dramatic structural abnormalities reflective of human ACM, including biventricular dilation, reduced ejection fraction, cardiac fibrosis, and premature death.

Patient mutations linked to arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy enhance calpain-mediated desmoplakin degradation.

Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM) is an inherited disorder with variable genetic etiologies. Here we focused on understanding the precise molecular pathology of a single clinical variant in DSP, the gene encoding desmoplakin. We initially identified a novel missense desmoplakin variant (p.

Common Coding Variants in Are Associated With the Nav1.8 Late Current and Cardiac Conduction.

Background: Genetic variants at the / locus are strongly associated with electrocardiographic PR and QRS intervals. While is the canonical cardiac sodium channel gene, the role of in cardiac conduction is less well characterized.

Methods: We sequenced the locus in 3699 European-ancestry individuals to identify variants associated with cardiac conduction, and replicated our findings in 21,000 individuals of European ancestry.

Notch1 haploinsufficiency causes ascending aortic aneurysms in mice.

An ascending aortic aneurysm (AscAA) is a life-threatening disease whose molecular basis is poorly understood. Mutations in NOTCH1 have been linked to bicuspid aortic valve (BAV), which is associated with AscAA. Here, we describe a potentially novel role for Notch1 in AscAA.

Myofilament Calcium Sensitivity: Consequences of the Effective Concentration of Troponin I.

Control of calcium binding to and dissociation from cardiac troponin C (TnC) is essential to healthy cardiac muscle contraction/relaxation. There are numerous aberrant post-translational modifications and mutations within a plethora of contractile, and even non-contractile, proteins that appear to imbalance this delicate relationship. The direction and extent of the resulting change in calcium sensitivity is thought to drive the heart toward one type of disease or another.

Myofilament Calcium Sensitivity: Mechanistic Insight into TnI Ser-23/24 and Ser-150 Phosphorylation Integration.

Troponin I (TnI) is a major regulator of cardiac muscle contraction and relaxation. During physiological and pathological stress, TnI is differentially phosphorylated at multiple residues through different signaling pathways to match cardiac function to demand. The combination of these TnI phosphorylations can exhibit an expected or unexpected functional integration, whereby the function of two phosphorylations are different than that predicted from the combined function of each individual phosphorylation alone.

Myofilament Calcium Sensitivity: Role in Regulation of Cardiac Contraction and Relaxation.

Myofilament calcium sensitivity is an often-used indicator of cardiac muscle function, often assessed in disease states such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). While assessment of calcium sensitivity provides important insights into the mechanical force-generating capability of a muscle at steady-state, the dynamic behavior of the muscle cannot be sufficiently assessed with a force-pCa curve alone. The equilibrium dissociation constant (K) of the force-pCa curve depends on the ratio of the apparent calcium association rate constant (k) and apparent calcium dissociation rate constant (k) of calcium on TnC and as a stand-alone parameter cannot provide an accurate description of the dynamic contraction and relaxation behavior without the additional quantification of k or k, or actually measuring dynamic twitch kinetic parameters in an intact muscle.

Myocardial Contractile Dysfunction Is Present without Histopathology in a Mouse Model of Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy-2F and Is Prevented after Claudin-5 Virotherapy.

Mutations in several members of the dystrophin glycoprotein complex lead to skeletal and cardiomyopathies. Cardiac care for these muscular dystrophies consists of management of symptoms with standard heart medications after detection of reduced whole heart function. Recent evidence from both Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients and animal models suggests that myocardial dysfunction is present before myocardial damage or deficiencies in whole heart function, and that treatment prior to heart failure symptoms may be beneficial.

Effects of zacopride, a moderate I channel agonist, on triggered arrhythmia and contractility in human ventricular myocardium.

Ventricular tachycardia is the leading cause of sudden arrhythmic death in the U.S. Recently, the moderate I channel activator, zacopride, was shown to suppress triggered ventricular tachycardia in rats.

Altered protein levels in the isolated extracellular matrix of failing human hearts with dilated cardiomyopathy.

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is associated with extensive pathological cardiac remodeling and involves numerous changes in the protein expression profile of the extracellular matrix of the heart. We obtained seven human, end-stage, failing hearts with DCM (DCM-failing) and nine human, nonfailing donor hearts and compared their extracellular matrix protein profiles. We first showed that the DCM-failing hearts had indeed undergone extensive remodeling of the left ventricle myocardium relative to nonfailing hearts.

Similar efficacy from specific and non-specific mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist treatment of muscular dystrophy mice.

Background: Combined treatment with an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and a mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonist improved cardiac and skeletal muscle function and pathology in a mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. MR is present in limb and respiratory skeletal muscles and functions as a steroid hormone receptor.

Objective: The goals of the current study were to compare the efficacy of the specific MR antagonist eplerenone with the non-specific MR antagonist spironolactone, both in combination with the angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor lisinopril.

Adenosine-Induced Atrial Fibrillation: Localized Reentrant Drivers in Lateral Right Atria due to Heterogeneous Expression of Adenosine A1 Receptors and GIRK4 Subunits in the Human Heart.

Background: Adenosine provokes atrial fibrillation (AF) with a higher activation frequency in right atria (RA) versus left atria (LA) in patients, but the underlying molecular and functional substrates are unclear. We tested the hypothesis that adenosine-induced AF is driven by localized reentry in RA areas with highest expression of adenosine A1 receptor and its downstream GIRK (G protein-coupled inwardly rectifying potassium channels) channels (IK,Ado).

Methods: We applied biatrial optical mapping and immunoblot mapping of various atrial regions to reveal the mechanism of adenosine-induced AF in explanted failing and nonfailing human hearts (n=37).

The Need for Speed: Mice, Men, and Myocardial Kinetic Reserve.

Kinetic reserve, i.e. the ability of the myocardial muscle to accelerate contraction and relaxation upon an increase in heart rate is a critically important aspect of human cardiac health, and is negatively impacted in cardiac pathologies.

Dysfunction of the β2-spectrin-based pathway in human heart failure.

β2-Spectrin is critical for integrating membrane and cytoskeletal domains in excitable and nonexcitable cells. The role of β2-spectrin for vertebrate function is illustrated by dysfunction of β2-spectrin-based pathways in disease. Recently, defects in β2-spectrin association with protein partner ankyrin-B were identified in congenital forms of human arrhythmia.

The Effect of Sorafenib, Tadalafil and Macitentan Treatments on Thyroxin-Induced Hemodynamic Changes and Cardiac Abnormalities.

Multikinase inhibitors (e.g. Sorafenib), phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors (e.

Rationally engineered Troponin C modulates in vivo cardiac function and performance in health and disease.

Treatment for heart disease, the leading cause of death in the world, has progressed little for several decades. Here we develop a protein engineering approach to directly tune in vivo cardiac contractility by tailoring the ability of the heart to respond to the Ca(2+) signal. Promisingly, our smartly formulated Ca(2+)-sensitizing TnC (L48Q) enhances heart function without any adverse effects that are commonly observed with positive inotropes.

Designing proteins to combat disease: Cardiac troponin C as an example.

Throughout history, muscle research has led to numerous scientific breakthroughs that have brought insight to a more general understanding of all biological processes. Potentially one of the most influential discoveries was the role of the second messenger calcium and its myriad of handling and sensing systems that mechanistically control muscle contraction. In this review we will briefly discuss the significance of calcium as a universal second messenger along with some of the most common calcium binding motifs in proteins, focusing on the EF-hand.

Insights into length-dependent regulation of cardiac cross-bridge cycling kinetics in human myocardium.

Cross-bridge cycling kinetics play an essential role in the heart's ability to contract and relax. The rate of tension redevelopment (ktr) slows down as a muscle length is increased in intact human myocardium. We set out to determine the effect of rapid length step changes and protein kinase A (PKA) and protein kinase C-βII (PKC-βII) inhibitors on the ktr in ultra-thin non-failing and failing human right ventricular trabeculae.

Effect of exercise training and myocardial infarction on force development and contractile kinetics in isolated canine myocardium.

It is well known that moderate exercise training elicits a small increase in ventricular mass (i.e., a physiological hypertrophy) that has many beneficial effects on overall cardiac health.

Human sinoatrial node structure: 3D microanatomy of sinoatrial conduction pathways.

Introduction: Despite a century of extensive study on the human sinoatrial node (SAN), the structure-to-function features of specialized SAN conduction pathways (SACP) are still unknown and debated. We report a new method for direct analysis of the SAN microstructure in optically-mapped human hearts with and without clinical history of SAN dysfunction.

Methods: Two explanted donor human hearts were coronary-perfused and optically-mapped.