[Effect of overexpression of aldehyde dehydrogenase family member A2 on hypertrophic growth and proliferation of cardiomyocytes].

Retinoic acid signaling pathway plays a role in regulating vertebrate development, cell differentiation, and homeostasis. As a key enzyme that catalyzes the oxidation of retinal to retinoic acid, aldehyde dehydrogenase 1 family member A2 (Aldh1a2) is involved in cardiac development, while whether it functions in heart diseases remains to be studied. In this study, we infected primary cardiomyocytes with adenovirus overexpressing (Ad-Aldh1a2) to explore the effects of overexpression on the biological function of cardiomyocytes. The results showed that the infection with Ad-Aldh1a2 realized the overexpression of in cardiomyocytes. Compared with the control group infected with Ad-GFP, the cardiomyocytes infected with Ad-Aldh1a2 showcased significantly increased size and up-regulated expression levels of the atrial natriuretic factor gene (), brain natriuretic peptide gene (), and βmyosin heavy chain (-). In addition, 5-ethynyl-2'-deoxyuridine (EdU) incorporation assay demonstrated that overexpression increased the proportion of cardiomyocytes with positive EdU signals and upregulated the expression levels of proliferation-related genes cyclin D2 () and budding uninhibited by benzimidazole 1 (). The above data indicated that overexpression of induced hypertrophic growth and proliferation of cardiomyocytes. This study provides a basis for further understanding the function of Aldh1a2 in heart diseases and developing therapies for heart diseases.