Project description:Mammalian cardiomyocytes rapidly mature after birth, with hallmarks such as cell-cycle exit, binucleation, and metabolic switch to oxidative phosphorylation of lipids. The causes and transcriptional programs regulating cardiomyocyte maturation are not fully understood yet. Thus, we performed single cell RNA-seq of neonatal and postnatal day 7 rat hearts to identify the key factors for this process and found AP-1 as a key factor to regulate cardiomyocyte maturation. To find the mechanism of AP-1 during cardiomyocyte maturation, we performed RNA-seq analysis of neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes and found Ap-1 promote cardiomyocyte maturation by regulating cardiomyocyte metabolism.
Project description:Postnatal heart maturation is the basis of normal cardiac function and provides critical insights into heart repair and regenerative medicine. While static snapshots of the maturing heart have provided much insight into its molecular signatures, few key events during postnatal cardiomyocyte maturation have been uncovered.Here we processed bulkRNASeq and ChIPSeq of Cardiomyocyte at different postnatal time points.
Project description:Postnatal heart maturation is the basis of normal cardiac function and provides critical insights into heart repair and regenerative medicine. While static snapshots of the maturing heart have provided much insight into its molecular signatures, few key events during postnatal cardiomyocyte maturation have been uncovered.Here we processed single cell RNASeq of Cardiomyocyte at different postnatal time points.
Project description:Cardiac maturation lays the foundation for postnatal heart development and disease, yet little is known about the contributions of the microenvironment to cardiomyocyte maturation. By integrating single-cell RNA-sequencing data of mouse hearts at multiple postnatal stages, we construct cellular interactomes and regulatory signaling networks. Here we report switching of fibroblast subtypes from a neonatal to adult state and this drives cardiomyocyte maturation. Molecular and functional maturation of neonatal mouse cardiomyocytes and human embryonic stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes are considerably enhanced upon coculture with corresponding adult cardiac fibroblasts. Further, single-cell analysis of in vivo and in vitro cardiomyocyte maturation trajectories identify highly conserved signaling pathways, pharmacological targeting of which substantially delays cardiomyocyte maturation in postnatal hearts, and markedly enhances cardiomyocyte proliferation and improves cardiac function in infarcted hearts. Together, we identify cardiac fibroblasts as a key constituent in the microenvironment promoting cardiomyocyte maturation, providing insights into how the manipulation of cardiomyocyte maturity may impact on disease development and regeneration.
Project description:The mammalian heart undergoes maturation during postnatal life to meet the increased functional requirements of the adult. However, the key drivers of this process remain poorly defined. We developed as 96-well screening platform, using human pluripotent stem cell derived cardiac organoids, to determine the molecular requirements for in vitro cardiomyocyte maturation. Here, we describe gene expression changes resulting from culturing human cardiac organoids in standard cell culture conditions and under optimized maturation conditions. We assessed our maturation conditions by comparing transcriptional changes of human cardiac organoids to RNA isolated from human heart. Interesting, analysis of these data revealed that a switch to fatty acid oxidative metabolism is a key governor of cardiomyocyte maturation and mature cardiac organoids were refractory to mitogenic stimuli.
Project description:The zebrafish has emerged as a powerful model to study cardiac regeneration; however, the mechanisms by which cardiomyocytes respond to damage by disassembling sarcomeres, proliferating, and repopulating the injured area remain unclear. Here, we show that AP-1 transcription factors play an essential role in regulating the cardiomyocyte response. Using ATAC-Seq, we first find that the cardiomyocyte chromatin accessibility landscape is dynamic following cryoinjury, and that AP-1 motifs are the most highly enriched in regions that gain accessibility during regeneration. Using a cardiomyocyte-specific dominant-negative approach, we show that AP-1 promotes cardiomyocyte proliferation as well as chromatin accessibility at genes regulating sarcomere disassembly and cardiomyocyte protrusion into the injured area. We further find distinct temporal requirements for AP-1 during cardiac regeneration. Altogether, these results indicate that AP-1 plays a key role in the cardiomyocyte response to injury by promoting chromatin accessibility changes, allowing the activation of gene expression programs that support regeneration.
Project description:To investigate the role of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) in the regulation of cardiomyocyte maturation and proliferation, we established a cardiomyocyte-specific GR knock-out (GR-cKO) mouse model by Cre-Lox technology. We thus performed gene expression profiling analysis using data obtained from RNA-seq of the cardiac tissue of GR-cKO and control mouse models extracted during the early postnatal development. Our analyses unveiled a role for GR in regulating gene networks related to the energetic metabolism, which in turn may impact on cardiomyocyte proliferative and regenerative ability.
Project description:Background: There is a limited capacity to repair damage in the mammalian heart after birth, which is primarily due to the inability of cardiomyocytes to proliferate after birth. This is in contrast to zebrafish and salamander, in which cardiomyocytes retain the ability to proliferate throughout life and can regenerate their heart after significant damage. Recent studies in zebrafish and rodents implicate microRNAs (miRNAs) in the regulation of genes responsible for cardiac cell cycle progression and regeneration, in particular, miR-133a, the miR-15 family, miR-199a and miR-590. However, the significance of these miRNAs and miRNA in general in the regulation of cardiomyocyte proliferation in large mammals, including humans, where the timing of heart development relative to birth is very different than in rodents, is unclear. To determine the involvement of miRNAs in the down-regulation of cardiomyocyte proliferation occurring before birth in large mammals, we investigated miRNA and target gene expression in sheep hearts before and after birth. The experimental approach included targeted transcriptional profiling of miRNA and target mRNA previously identified in rodent studies as well as genome-wide miRNA profiling using microarrays. Results: The cardiac expression of miR-133a increased and its target gene IGF1R decreased with increasing age, reaching their respective maximum and minimum abundance when the majority of ovine cardiomyocytes were quiescent. The expression of the miR-15 family members was variable with age, however, four of their target genes decreased with age. These latter profiles are inconsistent with the direct involvement of this family of miRNA in cardiomyocyte quiescence in late gestation sheep. The expression patterns of ‘pro-proliferative’ miR-199a and miR-590 were also inconsistent with their involvement in cardiomyocyte quiescence. Consequently, miRNA microarray analysis was undertaken, which identified six discrete clusters of miRNA with characteristic developmental profiles. The functions of predicted target genes for the miRNA in four of the six clusters were enriched for aspects of cell division and regulation of cell proliferation suggesting a potential role of these miRNA in regulating cardiomyocyte proliferation. Conclusion: The results of this study show that the expression of miR-133a and one of its target genes is consistent with it being involved in the suppression of cardiomyocyte proliferation, which occurs across the last third of gestation in sheep. The expression patterns of the miR-15 family, miR-199a and miR-590 were inconsistent with direct involvement in the regulation cardiomyocyte proliferation in sheep, despite studies in rodents demonstrating that their manipulation can influence the degree of cardiomyocyte proliferation. miRNA microarray analysis suggests a coordinated and potentially more complex role of multiple miRNA in the regulation of cardiomyocyte quiescence and highlights significant differences between species that may reflect their substantial differences in the timing of this developmental process. RNA, (2 µg) from three heart samples from each of the 91 d (fetus), 141 d (fetus), 5 d (postnatal) and 173 d (postnatal) groups, was used for analysis according to standard procedures. The experimental design included three biological replicates from each of the four normal developmental ages in sheep and thus a total of 12 samples was analyzed.