Epicardial HDAC3 Promotes Myocardial Growth Through a Novel MicroRNA Pathway.

Background: Establishment of the myocardial wall requires proper growth cues from nonmyocardial tissues. During heart development, the epicardium and epicardium-derived cells instruct myocardial growth by secreting essential factors including FGF (fibroblast growth factor) 9 and IGF (insulin-like growth factor) 2. However, it is poorly understood how the epicardial secreted factors are regulated, in particular by chromatin modifications for myocardial formation. The current study is to investigate whether and how HDAC (histone deacetylase) 3 in the developing epicardium regulates myocardial growth.

Methods: Various cellular and mouse models in conjunction with biochemical and molecular tools were employed to study the role of HDAC3 in the developing epicardium.

Results: We deleted in the developing murine epicardium, and mutant hearts showed ventricular myocardial wall hypoplasia with reduction of epicardium-derived cells. The cultured embryonic cardiomyocytes with supernatants from knockout (KO) mouse epicardial cells also showed decreased proliferation. Genome-wide transcriptomic analysis revealed that and were significantly downregulated in KO mouse epicardial cells. We further found that and expression is dependent on HDAC3 deacetylase activity. The supplementation of FGF9 or IGF2 can rescue the myocardial proliferation defects treated by KO supernatant. Mechanistically, we identified that microRNA (miR)-322 and miR-503 were upregulated in KO mouse epicardial cells and epicardial KO hearts. Overexpression of miR-322 or miR-503 repressed FGF9 and IGF2 expression, while knockdown of miR-322 or miR-503 restored FGF9 and IGF2 expression in KO mouse epicardial cells.

Conclusions: Our findings reveal a critical signaling pathway in which epicardial HDAC3 promotes compact myocardial growth by stimulating FGF9 and IGF2 through repressing miR-322 or miR-503, providing novel insights in elucidating the etiology of congenital heart defects and conceptual strategies to promote myocardial regeneration.