Aldosterone modulates If current through gene expression in cultured neonatal rat ventricular myocytes

2007 ◽  
Vol 293 (5) ◽  
pp. H2710-H2718 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takao Muto ◽  
Norihiro Ueda ◽  
Tobias Opthof ◽  
Tomoko Ohkusa ◽  
Kohzo Nagata ◽  
...  

Mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonists decrease the incidence of sudden cardiac death in patients with heart failure, as has been reported in two clinical trials (Randomized Aldactone Evaluation Study and Eplerenone Post-Acute Myocardial Infarction Heart Failure Efficacy and Survival Study). Aldosterone has been shown to increase the propensity to arrhythmias by changing the expression or function of various ion channels. In this study, we investigate the effect of aldosterone on the expression of hyperpolarization-activated current ( If) channels in cultured neonatal rat ventricular myocytes, using the whole cell patch-clamp technique, real-time PCR, and Western blotting. Incubation with 10 nM aldosterone for 17–24 h significantly accelerates the rate of spontaneous beating by increasing diastolic depolarization. If current elicited by hyperpolarization from −50 to −130 mV significantly increases aldosterone by 10 nM (by 1.9-fold). Exposure to aldosterone for 1.5 h increases hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) 2 mRNA by 26.3% and HCN4 mRNA by 47.2%, whereas HCN1 mRNA expression remains unaffected. Aldosterone (24-h incubation) increases the expression of HCN2 protein (by 60.0%) and HCN4 protein (by 84.8%), but not HCN1 protein. MR antagonists (1 μM eplerenone or 0.1 μM spironolactone) abolish the increase of If channel expression (currents, mRNA, and protein levels) by 10 nM aldosterone. In contrast, 1 μM aldosterone downregulated If channel gene expression. Glucocorticoid receptor antagonist (100 nM RU-38486) did not affect the increase of If current by 10 nM aldosterone. These findings suggest that aldosterone in physiological concentrations upregulates If channel gene expression by MR activation in cardiac myocytes and may increase excitability, which may have a potential proarrhythmic bearing under pathophysiological conditions.

Author(s):  
Tara A Shrout

Cardiac hypertrophy is a growth process that occurs in response to stress stimuli or injury, and leads to the induction of several pathways to alter gene expression. Under hypertrophic stimuli, sarcomeric structure is disrupted, both as a consequence of gene expression and local changes in sarcomeric proteins. Cardiac-restricted ankyrin repeat protein (CARP) is one such protein that function both in cardiac sarcomeres and at the transcriptional level. We postulate that due to this dual nature, CARP plays a key role in maintaining the cardiac sarcomere. GATA4 is another protein detected in cardiomyocytes as important in hypertrophy, as it is activated by hypertrophic stimuli, and directly binds to DNA to alter gene expression. Results of GATA4 activation over time were inconclusive; however, the role of CARP in mediating hypertrophic growth in cardiomyocytes was clearly demonstrated. In this study, Neonatal Rat Ventricular Myocytes were used as a model to detect changes over time in CARP and GATA4 under hypertrophic stimulation by phenylephrine and high serum media. Results were detected by analysis of immunoblotting. The specific role that CARP plays in mediating cellular growth under hypertrophic stimuli was studied through immunofluorescence, which demonstrated that cardiomyocyte growth with hypertrophic stimulation was significantly blunted when NRVMs were co-treated with CARP siRNA. These data suggest that CARP plays an important role in the hypertrophic response in cardiomyocytes.


Circulation ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 130 (suppl_2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adonis Z Wu ◽  
Shien-Fong Lin ◽  
Sheng-Nan Wu

Introduction: Zebrafish heart is established as a model to investigate cardiac electrical abnormalities. However, electrical properties of adult zebrafish cardiomyocytes are not sufficiently characterized. Hypothesis: In this study, by comparing the electrical properties between neonatal rat ventricular myocytes (NRVMs) and adult zebrafish ventricular myocytes (AZVMs), we intended to characterize the action potential (AP), action current (AC) and the properties of Na + current ( I Na ) in AZVMs. Methods: We used patch-clamp technique to characterize the electrical properties, including AP, AC and I Na , in cultured NRVMs and freshly isolated AZVMs. Results: NVRMs showed larger AP amplitude (119±6 vs. 79±4mV, p<.05) but shorter AP duration (APD 90 , 136±11 vs. 213±19 ms, p<.05) than those of AZVMs. The AP duration exhibited marked frequency-dependent alterations in AZVMs. Under the slow pacing rate, early after-depolarizations (EAD) emerged under slow pacing rate with 0.05 Hz. In cell-attached voltage-clamp recordings made from AZVMs, ACs could be elicited by +10 mV steps. As the depolarization step increased to +70 mV, the latency for appearance of ACs was progressively reduced from >123 ms to 9.8 ms. The presence of spontaneous ACs was monitored in spontaneously beating NRVMs and AZVMs. The AC amplitude in NRVMs was larger compared to that in AZVMs (17.3±2.1 vs. 11.6±1.1 pA, p<.05), although firing frequency of AC in NRVMs is higher than in AZVMs (1.13±0.09 vs. 0.38±0.03 Hz, p<.05). The lowering effect of ranolazine, a I Na antagonist, on firing frequency was significantly larger in NRVMs (1.13±0.09 to 0.31±0.02 Hz, p<.05) than in AZVMs (0.38±0.03 to 0.27±0.02 Hz). There was a hyperpolarizing shift of peak I Na in AZVM compared to NRVM. Conclusions: Our results demonstrated major differences in the cellular electrical behavior between AZVMs and NRVMs.


2003 ◽  
Vol 285 (1) ◽  
pp. C39-C47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Porter ◽  
Maria C. Heidkamp ◽  
Brian T. Scully ◽  
Nehu Patel ◽  
Jody L. Martin ◽  
...  

Patients with cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure display abnormally slowed myocardial relaxation, which is associated with downregulation of sarco(endo)plasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA2) gene expression. We previously showed that SERCA2 downregulation can be simulated in cultured neonatal rat ventricular myocytes (NRVM) by treatment with the protein kinase C (PKC) activator phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA). However, NRVM express three different PMA-sensitive PKC isoenzymes (PKCα, PKCϵ, and PKCδ), which may be differentially regulated and have specific functions in the cardiomyocyte. Therefore, in this study we used adenoviral vectors encoding wild-type (wt) and kinase-defective, dominant negative (dn) mutant forms of PKCα, PKCϵ, and PKCδ to analyze their individual effects in regulating SERCA2 gene expression in NRVM. Overexpression of wtPKCϵ and wtPKCδ, but not wtPKCα, was sufficient to downregulate SERCA2 mRNA levels, as assessed by Northern blotting and quantitative, real-time RT-PCR (69 ± 7 and 61 ± 9% of control levels for wtPKCϵ and wtPKCδ, respectively; P < 0.05 for each adenovirus; n = 8 experiments). Conversely, overexpression of all three dnPKCs appeared to significantly increase SERCA2 mRNA levels (dnPKCδ > dnPKCϵ > dnPKCα). dnPKCδ overexpression produced the largest increase (2.8 ± 1.0-fold; n = 11 experiments). However, PMA treatment was still sufficient to downregulate SERCA2 mRNA levels despite overexpression of each dominant negative mutant. These data indicate that the novel PKC isoenzymes PKCϵ and PKCδ selectively regulate SERCA2 gene expression in cardiomyocytes but that neither PKC alone is necessary for this effect if the other novel PKC can be activated.


2010 ◽  
Vol 298 (6) ◽  
pp. H1719-H1726 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Y. Jeong ◽  
John S. Walker ◽  
R. Dale Brown ◽  
Russell L. Moore ◽  
Charles S. Vinson ◽  
...  

Using neonatal rat ventricular myocytes, we previously reported that the expression of a dominant negative form of the c-Fos proto-oncogene (AFos) inhibited activator protein 1 activity and blocked the induction of the pathological gene profile stimulated by phenylephrine (PE) while leaving growth unaffected. We now extend these observations to the adult rat ventricular myocyte (ARVM) to understand the relationship between gene expression, growth, and function. Ventricular myocytes were isolated from adult rats and infected with adenovirus expressing β-galactosidase (control) or AFos. The cells were subsequently treated with PE, and protein synthesis, gene program, calcium transients, and contractility were evaluated. As seen with the neonatal rat ventricular myocytes, in control cells PE stimulated an increase in protein synthesis, induced the pathological gene profile, and exhibited both depressed contractility and calcium transients. Although ARVMs expressing AFos still had PE-induced growth, pathological gene expression as well as contractility and calcium handling abnormalities were inhibited. To determine a possible mechanism of the preserved myocyte function in AFos-expressing cells, we examined phospholamban (PLB) and sarco(endo)plasmic reticulum calcium-ATPase proteins. Although there was no change in total PLB or sarco(endo)plasmic reticulum calcium-ATPase expression in response to PE treatment, PE decreased the phosphorylation of PLB at serine-16, an observation that was prevented in AFos-expressing cells. In conclusion, although PE-induced growth was unaffected in AFos-expressing ARVMs, the expression of the pathological gene profile was inhibited and both contractile function and calcium cycling were preserved. The inhibition of functional deterioration was, in part, due to the preservation of PLB phosphorylation.


2005 ◽  
Vol 289 (2) ◽  
pp. C471-C482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria C. Heidkamp ◽  
Brian T. Scully ◽  
Kalpana Vijayan ◽  
Steven J. Engman ◽  
Erika L. Szotek ◽  
...  

The nonreceptor protein tyrosine kinase (PTK) proline-rich tyrosine kinase 2 (PYK2) has been implicated in cell signaling pathways involved in left ventricular hypertrophy and heart failure, but its exact role has not been elucidated. In this study, replication-defective adenoviruses (Adv) encoding green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged, wild-type (WT), and mutant forms of PYK2 were used to determine whether PYK2 overexpression activates MAPKs, and downregulates SERCA2 mRNA levels in neonatal rat ventricular myocytes (NRVM). PYK2 overexpression significantly decreased SERCA2 mRNA (as determined by Northern blot analysis and real-time RT-PCR) to 54 ± 4% of Adv-GFP-infected cells 48 h after Adv infection. Adv-encoding kinase-deficient (KD) and Y402F phosphorylation-deficient mutants of PYK2 also significantly reduced SERCA2 mRNA (WT>KD>Y402F). Conversely, the PTK inhibitor PP2 (which blocks PYK2 phosphorylation by Src-family PTKs) significantly increased SERCA2 mRNA levels. PYK2 overexpression had no effect on ERK1/2, but increased JNK1/2 and p38MAPK phosphorylation from fourfold to eightfold compared with GFP overexpression. Activation of both “stress-activated” protein kinase cascades appeared necessary to reduce SERCA2 mRNA levels. Adv-mediated overexpression of constitutively active (ca)MKK6 or caMKK7, which activated only p38MAPK or JNKs, respectively, was not sufficient, whereas combined infection with both Adv reduced SERCA2 mRNA levels to 45 ± 12% of control. WTPYK2 overexpression also significantly reduced SERCA2 promoter activity, as determined by transient transfection of a 3.8-kb SERCA2 promoter-luciferase construct. Thus a PYK2-dependent signaling cascade may have a role in abnormal cardiac Ca2+ handling in left ventricular hypertrophy and heart failure via downregulation of SERCA2 gene transcription.


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