ABSTRACT
ß-Catenin signaling pathway regulates cardiomyocytes proliferation and differentiation, though its involvement in metabolic regulation of cardiomyocytes remains unknown. We used one-day-old mice with cardiac-specific knockout of ß-catenin and neonatal rat ventricular myocytes treated with ß-catenin inhibitor to investigate the role of ß-catenin metabolism regulation in perinatal cardiomyocytes. Transcriptomics of perinatal ß-catenin-ablated hearts revealed a dramatic shift in the expression of genes involved in metabolic processes. Further analysis indicated an inhibition of lipolysis and glycolysis in both in vitro and in vivo models. Finally, we showed that ß-catenin deficiency leads to mitochondria dysfunction via the downregulation of Sirt1/PGC-1α pathway. We conclude that cardiac-specific ß-catenin ablation disrupts the energy substrate shift that is essential for postnatal heart maturation, leading to perinatal lethality of homozygous ß-catenin knockout mice.
Subject(s)
Energy Metabolism/genetics , Energy Metabolism/physiology , Gene Deletion , Mitochondria/metabolism , Myocytes, Cardiac/metabolism , beta Catenin/metabolism , Animals , Animals, Newborn , Down-Regulation , Mice , Mice, Knockout , Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Gamma Coactivator 1-alpha/genetics , Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Gamma Coactivator 1-alpha/metabolism , Sirtuin 1/genetics , Sirtuin 1/metabolism , beta Catenin/geneticsABSTRACT
There is a major unmet need for development of innovative strategies for neuroprotection against ischemic brain injury. Here we show that FGL, a neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM)-derived peptide binding to and inducing phosphorylation of the fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR), acts neuroprotectively after an ischemic insult both in vitro and in vivo. The neuroprotective activity of FGL was tested in vitro on dissociated rat hippocampal neurons and hippocampal slice cultures, using a protocol of oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD). FGL protected hippocampal neurons from damage and maintained or restored their metabolic and presynaptic activity, both if employed as a pretreatment alone to OGD, and if only applied after the insult. In vivo 24 h pretreatment with a single suboccipital injection of FGL significantly protected hippocampal CA1 neurons from death in a transient global ischemia model in the gerbil. We conclude that FGL promotes neuronal survival after ischemic brain injury.
