Biomolecules (Dec 2022)

Genetic Ablation of <i>Ankrd1</i> Mitigates Cardiac Damage during Experimental Autoimmune Myocarditis in Mice

  • Ieva Rinkūnaitė,
  • Egidijus Šimoliūnas,
  • Milda Alksnė,
  • Gabrielė Bartkutė,
  • Siegfried Labeit,
  • Virginija Bukelskienė,
  • Julius Bogomolovas

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/biom12121898
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 12
p. 1898

Abstract

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Myocarditis (MC) is an inflammatory disease of the myocardium that can cause sudden death in the acute phase, and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) with chronic heart failure as its major long-term outcome. However, the molecular mechanisms beyond the acute MC phase remain poorly understood. The ankyrin repeat domain 1 (ANKRD1) is a functionally pleiotropic stress/stretch-inducible protein, which can modulate cardiac stress response during various forms of pathological stimuli; however, its involvement in post-MC cardiac remodeling leading to DCM is not known. To address this, we induced experimental autoimmune myocarditis (EAM) in ANKRD1-deficient mice, and evaluated post-MC consequences at the DCM stage mice hearts. We demonstrated that ANKRD1 does not significantly modulate heart failure; nevertheless, the genetic ablation of Ankrd1 blunted the cardiac damage/remodeling and preserved heart function during post-MC DCM.

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