scholarly journals The Role of CaMKII Overexpression and Oxidation in Atrial Fibrillation—A Simulation Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Wang ◽  
Weijian Shen ◽  
Shanzhuo Zhang ◽  
Gongning Luo ◽  
Kuanquan Wang ◽  
...  

This simulation study aims to investigate how the Calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) overexpression and oxidation would influence the cardiac electrophysiological behavior and its arrhythmogenic mechanism in atria. A new-built CaMKII oxidation module and a refitted CaMKII overexpression module were integrated into a mouse atrial cell model for analyzing cardiac electrophysiological variations in action potential (AP) characteristics and intracellular Ca2+ cycling under different conditions. Simulation results showed that CaMKII overexpression significantly increased the phosphorylation level of its downstream target proteins, resulting in prolonged AP and smaller calcium transient amplitude, and impaired the Ca2+ cycling stability. These effects were exacerbated by extra reactive oxygen species, which oxidized CaMKII and led to continuous high CaMKII activation in both systolic and diastolic phases. Intracellular Ca2+ depletion and sustained delayed afterdepolarizations (DADs) were observed under co-existing CaMKII overexpression and oxidation, which could be effectively reversed by clamping the phosphorylation level of ryanodine receptor (RyR). We also found that the stability of RyR release highly depended on a delicate balance between the level of RyR phosphorylation and sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ concentration, which was closely related to the genesis of DADs. We concluded that the CaMKII overexpression and oxidation have a synergistic role in increasing the activity of CaMKII, and the unstable RyR may be the key downstream target in the CaMKII arrhythmogenic mechanism. Our simulation provides detailed mechanistic insights into the arrhythmogenic effect of CaMKII overexpression and oxidation, which suggests CaMKII as a promising target in the therapy of atrial fibrillation.

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guixi Mo ◽  
Xin Liu ◽  
Yiyue Zhong ◽  
Jian Mo ◽  
Zhiyi Li ◽  
...  

AbstractIntracellular ion channel inositol 1,4,5-triphosphate receptor (IP3R1) releases Ca2+ from endoplasmic reticulum. The disturbance of IP3R1 is related to several neurodegenerative diseases. This study investigated the mechanism of IP3R1 in myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (MI/R). After MI/R modeling, IP3R1 expression was silenced in myocardium of MI/R rats to explore its role in the concentration of myocardial enzymes, infarct area, Ca2+ level, NLRP3/Caspase-1, and pyroptosis markers and inflammatory factors. The adult rat cardiomyocytes were isolated and cultured to establish hypoxia/reperfusion (H/R) cell model. The expression of IP3R1 was downregulated or ERP44 was overexpressed in H/R-induced cells. Nifedipine D6 was added to H/R-induced cells to block Ca2+ channel or Nigericin was added to activate NLRP3. IP3R1 was highly expressed in myocardium of MI/R rats, and silencing IP3R1 alleviated MI/R injury, reduced Ca2+ overload, inflammation and pyroptosis in MI/R rats, and H/R-induced cells. The binding of ERP44 to IP3R1 inhibited Ca2+ overload, alleviated cardiomyocyte inflammation, and pyroptosis. The increase of intracellular Ca2+ level caused H/R-induced cardiomyocyte pyroptosis through the NLRP3/Caspase-1 pathway. Activation of NLRP3 pathway reversed the protection of IP3R1 inhibition/ERP44 overexpression/Nifedipine D6 on H/R-induced cells. Overall, ERP44 binding to IP3R1 inhibits Ca2+ overload, thus alleviating pyroptosis and MI/R injury.


2003 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 3873-3886
Author(s):  
O. V. ASLANIDI ◽  
A. V. HOLDEN

A simple two-variable model is used to replace the formulation of calcium dynamics in the Luo–Rudy ventricular cell model. Virtual ventricular cell and tissue are developed and validated to reproduce restitution properties and calcium-dependent voltage patterns present in the original model. Basic interactions between the membrane potential and Ca 2+ dynamics in the virtual cell and a strand of the virtual tissue are studied. Intracellular calcium waves can be linked to both action potentials (APs) and delayed afterdepolarizations (DADs). An intracellular calcium wave propagating from the cell interior can induce an AP upon reaching the cell membrane. The voltage and the intracellular Ca 2+ patterns within the same cell can be highly desynchronized. In a one-dimensional strand of the virtual tissue calcium motion is driven by the AP propagation. However, calcium release can be induced upon certain conditions (e.g. Na + overload of the cells), which results in DADs propagating in the wake of AP. Such propagating DADs can reach the excitation threshold, generating a pair of extrasystolic APs. Collision of a propagating AP with a site of elevated intracellular Ca 2+ concentration does not affect the propagation under the normal conditions. Under Na + overload local elevation of the intracellular Ca 2+ leads to generation of an extrasystolic AP, which destroys the original propagating AP.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Limin Liu ◽  
Guobin Chen ◽  
Taoliang Chen ◽  
Wenjuan Shi ◽  
Haiyan Hu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Intrauterine adhesions (IUAs) are manifestations of endometrial fibrosis characterized by inflammation and fibrinogen aggregation in the extracellular matrix (ECM). The available therapeutic interventions for IUA are insufficiently effective in the clinical setting for postoperative adhesion recurrence and infertility problems. In this study, we investigated whether si-SNHG5-FOXF2 can serve as a molecular mechanism for the inhibition of IUA fibrosis ex vivo. Methods FOXF2, TGF-β1 and collagen expression levels were measured by microarray sequencing analysis in three normal endometrium groups and six IUA patients. We induced primary human endometrial stromal cells (HESCs) into myofibroblasts (MFs) to develop an IUA cell model with various concentrations of TGF-β1 at various times. Downstream target genes of FOXF2 were screened by chromatin immunoprecipitation combined with whole-genome high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-seq). We investigated ECM formation, cell proliferation and Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway-related proteins in primary HESCs with FOXF2 downregulation by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), western blotting (WB), immunohistochemistry (IHC), flow cytometry, ethylenediurea (EdU) and CCK8 assays. We identified long noncoding RNAs (lncRNA) SNHG5 as the upstream regulatory gene of FOXF2 through RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP), RNA pulldown and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). Finally, we examined FOXF2 expression, ECM formation, cell proliferation and Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway-related proteins in primary HESCs upon FOXF2 downregulation. Results FOXF2 was highly expressed in the endometrium of patients with IUA. Treatment of primary HESCs with 10 ng/ml TGF-β1 for 72 h was found to be most effective for developing an IUA cell model. FOXF2 regulated multiple downstream target genes, including collagen, vimentin (VIM) and cyclin D2/DK4, by ChIP-seq and ChIP-PCR. FOXF2 downregulation inhibited TGF-β1-mediated primary HESC fibrosis, including ECM formation, cell proliferation and Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway-related protein expression. We identified lncRNA SNHG5 as an upstream gene that directly regulates FOXF2 by RIP-seq, qRT-PCR, WB and FISH. SNHG5 downregulation suppressed FOXF2 expression in the IUA cell model, resulting in synergistic repression of the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, thereby altering TGF-β1-mediated ECM aggregation in endometrial stromal cells ex vivo. Conclusions Regulation of the Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway and ECM formation by si-SNHG5-FOXF2 effectively inhibited the profibrotic effect of TGF-β1 on primary HESCs. This finding can provide a molecular basis for antagonizing TGF-β1-mediated fibrosis in primary HESCs.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukas Röseler ◽  
Daniel Wolf ◽  
Johannes Leder ◽  
Astrid Schütz

We argue that the test-retest reliability coefficient, which is the correlation between a measurement and a repeated measurement using the same diagnostic instrument in the same sample (sometimes referred to as repeatability or falsely referred to as stability), is by itself not an appropriate measure of the reliability of the diagnostic instrument or of the stability of the construct in question. In combination with an actual coefficient of reliability such as Cronbach’s alpha, the test-retest reliability coefficient can be used to estimate and compare the stabilities of constructs using a procedure based on the correction for attenuation. However, results from a simulation study showed that classically constructed confidence intervals for the estimator exhibit under-coverage and thus cannot be interpreted correctly.


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