Cardiac actin changes in the actomyosin interface have different effects on myosin duty ratio

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is an inherited cardiovascular disease (CD) that commonly causes an increased size of cardiomyocytes in the left ventricle. The proteins myosin and actin interact in the myocardium to produce contraction through the actomyosin ATPase cycle. The duty ratio (r) of myosin is the proportion of the actomyosin ATPase cycle that myosin is bound to actin and does work. A common hypothesis is that HCM mutations increase contraction in cardiac sarcomeres; however, the available data are not clear on this connection. Based on previous work with human α-cardiac actin (ACTC), we hypothesize that HCM-linked ACTC variants with alterations near the myosin binding site have an increased r, producing more force. Myosin duty ratios using human ACTC variant proteins were calculated with myosin ATPase activity and in-vitro motility data. We found no consistent changes in the duty ratio of the ACTC variants, suggesting that other factors are involved in the development of HCM when ACTC variants are present.

Alkaloid Synthesis: Penaresidin A (Subba Reddy), Allokainic Acid (Saicic), Sedacryptine (Rutjes), Lepistine (Yokoshima/Fukuyama), Septicine (Hanessian), Lyconadin C (Dai)

Penaresidin A 3, isolated from the Okinawan marine sponge Penares sp., is a potent activator of actomyosin ATPase. B. V. Subba Reddy of the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology prepared (Tetrahedron Lett. 2014, 55, 49) the azetidine ring of 3 by mesyl­ation of the hydroxy sulfonamide 2, derived from 1, followed by cyclization. Allokainic acid 6 has become a useful tool for neurological studies. Radomir N. Saicic of the University of Belgrade found (Org. Lett. 2014, 16, 34) that the Tsuji–Trost cyclization of 4 to 5 proceeded with high diastereoselectivity, presumably by way of the enamine of the aldehyde. Floris P. J. T. Rutjes of Radboud University Nijmegen prepared (Org. Lett. 2014, 16, 2038) the starting material 7 for (−)-sedacryptine 9 via an enantioselective Mannich addition. The reagent of choice for the Aza–Achmatowicz rearrangement of 7 to 8 proved to be mCPBA. The intriguing tricyclic alkaloid (−)-lepistine 12 was isolated from the mushroom Clitocybe fasciculate. En route to the first-ever synthesis of 12, Satoshi Yokoshima and Tohru Fukuyama of Nagoya University cyclized (Org. Lett. 2014, 16, 2862) the gly­cidol-derived sulfonamide 10 to the azacycle 11. (+)-Septicine 15 is the biogenetic precursor to the phenanthrene alkaloid (+)-tylophorine. Stephen Hanessian of the Université de Montréal prepared (Org. Lett. 2014, 16, 232) 15 by condensing the proline-derived ketone 13 with the aldehyde 14. Mingji Dai of Purdue University elaborated (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 3922) the amine 16 to the enone 17 by intramolecular Mannich alkylation followed by methylenation and allylic oxidation. Condensation with the sulfoxide 18 then delivered lyconadin C 19.