Nature Communications (Nov 2024)

Large-scale single-nuclei profiling identifies role for ATRNL1 in atrial fibrillation

  • Matthew C. Hill,
  • Bridget Simonson,
  • Carolina Roselli,
  • Ling Xiao,
  • Caroline N. Herndon,
  • Mark Chaffin,
  • Helene Mantineo,
  • Ondine Atwa,
  • Harshit Bhasin,
  • Yasmine Guedira,
  • Kenneth C. Bedi,
  • Kenneth B. Margulies,
  • Carla A. Klattenhoff,
  • Nathan R. Tucker,
  • Patrick T. Ellinor

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-54296-w
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 1
pp. 1 – 16

Abstract

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Abstract Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia in humans, yet the molecular basis of AF remains incompletely understood. To determine the cell type-specific transcriptional changes underlying AF, we perform single-nucleus RNA-seq (snRNA-seq) on left atrial (LA) samples from patients with AF and controls. From more than 175,000 nuclei we find that only cardiomyocytes (CMs) and macrophages (MΦs) have a significant number of differentially expressed genes in patients with AF. Attractin Like 1 (ATRNL1) was overexpressed in CMs among patients with AF and localized to the intercalated disks. Further, in both knockdown and overexpression experiments we identify a potent role for ATRNL1 in cell stress response, and in the modulation of the cardiac action potential. Finally, we detect an unexpected expression pattern for a leading AF candidate gene, KCNN3. In sum, we uncover a role for ATRNL1 which may serve as potential therapeutic target for this common arrhythmia.