Atorvastatin protects cardiomyocyte from doxorubicin toxicity by modulating survivin expression through FOXO1 inhibition.

BACKGROUND: Survivin has an anti-apoptotic effect against anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity. Clinically, statin use is associated with a lower risk for heart failure in breast cancer patients with anthracycline chemotherapy. So, the purpose of our study was to investigate whether survivin mediates the protective effect of statin against anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity. METHODS: Mice were treated once a week with 5 mg/kg doxorubicin for 4 weeks with or without atorvastatin 20 mg/kg every day then heart tissues were analyzed. Molecular and cellular biology analyses were performed with H9c2 cell lysates. RESULTS: Doxorubicin suppressed survivin expression via activation of FOXO1 in H9c2 cardiomyocytes. Whereas, atorvastatin inhibited FOXO1 by increasing phosphorylation and inhibiting nuclear localization. Doxorubicin induced FOXO1 binding to STAT3 and prevented STAT3 from interacting with Sp1. However, atorvastatin inhibited these interactions and stabilized STAT3/Sp1 transcription complex. Chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis demonstrated that doxorubicin decreased STAT3/Sp1 complex binding to survivin promoter, whereas atorvastatin stabilized this binding. In mouse model, atorvastatin rescued doxorubicin-induced reduction of survivin expression and of heart function measured by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggested a new pathophysiologic mechanism that survivin mediated protective effect of atorvastatin against doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity via FOXO1/STAT3/Sp1 transcriptional network.

Generation of an induced pluripotent stem cell line from a patient with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy harboring a TMEM43 splice-site variant.

Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM) is a cardiomyopathy that is predominantly inherited and characterized by cardiac arrhythmias and structural abnormalities. TMEM43 (transmembrane protein 43) is one of the well-known genetic culprits behind ACM. In this study, we successfully generated an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) line, YCMi010-A, derived from a male patient diagnosed with ACM. Although these iPSCs harbored a heterozygous intronic splice variant, TMEM43 c.443-2A > G, they still displayed normal cellular morphology and were confirmed to express pluripotency markers. YCMi010-A iPSC line is a promising model for investigating the pathomechanisms associated with ACM and exploring potential therapeutic strategies.

C-reactive protein accelerates DRP1-mediated mitochondrial fission by modulating ERK1/2-YAP signaling in cardiomyocytes.

C-reactive protein (CRP) is an inflammatory marker and risk factor for atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases. However, the mechanism through which CRP induces myocardial damage remains unclear. This study aimed to determine how CRP damages cardiomyocytes via the change of mitochondrial dynamics and whether survivin, an anti-apoptotic protein, exerts a cardioprotective effect in this process. We treated H9c2 cardiomyocytes with CRP and found increased intracellular ROS production and shortened mitochondrial length. CRP treatment phosphorylated ERK1/2 and promoted increased expression, phosphorylation, and translocation of DRP1, a mitochondrial fission-related protein, from the cytoplasm to the mitochondria. The expression of mitophagy proteins PINK1 and PARK2 was also increased by CRP. YAP, a transcriptional regulator of PINK1 and PARK2, was also increased by CRP. Knockdown of YAP prevented CRP-induced increases in DRP1, PINK1, and PARK2. Furthermore, CRP-induced changes in the expression of DRP1 and increases in YAP, PINK1, and PARK2 were inhibited by ERK1/2 inhibition, suggesting that ERK1/2 signaling is involved in CRP-induced mitochondrial fission. We treated H9c2 cardiomyocytes with a recombinant TAT-survivin protein before CRP treatment, which reduced CRP-induced ROS accumulation and reduced mitochondrial fission. CRP-induced activation of ERK1/2 and increases in the expression and activity of YAP and its downstream mitochondrial proteins were inhibited by TAT-survivin. This study shows that mitochondrial fission occurs during CRPinduced cardiomyocyte damage and that the ERK1/2-YAP axis is involved in this process, and identifies that survivin alters these mechanisms to prevent CRP-induced mitochondrial damage. [BMB Reports 2023; 56(12): 663-668].