Project description:Here we generated the first reference 3D chromatin contact maps from 101 biobanked human heart tissue samples through HiChIP (H3K27ac), in situ Hi-C, ChIP-seq, ATAC-seq and RNA-seq profiling. We discovered that the active regulatory elements and their connectome were extensively reprogrammed in DCM and contributed to transcription dysregulation implicated for DCM development. Higher-order chromatin structures indicated that the overall genome architecture was largely invariant in DCM and chromatin accessibility did not alter DCM-specific H3K27ac loops. This provided insight to the mechanistic hierarchies between higher-order chromatin structures, cis-regulatory elements and differential chromatin accessibilities in DCM, suggesting the importance of sequence-specific transcription factors. Intriguingly, we uncovered that the DCM-specific H3K27ac loops anchors exhibited a strong enrichment for Heart And Neural Crest Derivatives Expressed 1 (HAND1), a key transcription factor involved in early cardiogenesis. In line with this, its protein expression was upregulated in human DCM hearts and mouse failing hearts. Functional analyses by ectopic overexpression of HAND1 in human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes induced cell hypertrophy and abnormal electrophysiology. Moreover, cardiomyocyte-specific overexpression of HAND1 in the mouse heart resulted in cardiomyocyte enlargement, increased heart weight/body weight ratio and dilated left ventricle. Echocardiography showed that cardiomyocyte-specific Hand1 overexpression in the mouse heart led to cardiac dysfunction and remodeling. Thus, aberrant activation of HAND1 in adult cardiomyocytes recapitulated the phenotypes observed in human DCM and indicated the involvement of a partial reactivation of a developmentally earlier cell identity program in the disease.
Project description:Background - Cardiac microRNAs (miRNAs) could be released into circulation thus becoming circulating cardiac miRNAs, which are increasingly recognized as noninvasive and readily accessible biomarker for multiple heart diseases. A global loss of cardiac miRNAs due to dicer or dgcr8 depletion has been reported to lead to dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). However, DCM-associated circulating miRNAs (DACMs) and their roles in regulating DCM progression remain largely unexplored. Methods and Results - Through miRNA sequencing of human plasma procured from DCM patients and healthy control people, DCM was characterized with a unique expression pattern for circulating miRNAs. Among them, miR-26a-5p, miR-30c-5p, miR-126-5p, and miR-126-3p were all identified with dramatic reductions in DCM mouse myocardium as in the plasma of DCM patients. FOXO3, highlighted as a predicted common target gene, was experimentally demonstrated to be repressed within cardiomyocytes by these miRNAs except miR-26a-5p. Mechanistically, miRNA combination (miR-30c-5p, miR-126-5p, and miR-126-3p) significantly attenuated FOXO3-induced apoptosis and autophagy observed in cardiomyocytes as well as in DCM murine heart. Cardiac-specific knockout of FOXO3 conspicuously mitigated myocardial apoptosis and autophagy in DCM development. Moreover, stymieing the interaction between these miRNAs and FOXO3 mRNA extremely crippled the cardioprotection of these miRNAs against DCM progression. Cardiac miRNA-FOXO3 axis plays a pivotal role in safeguarding against myocardial apoptosis and autophagy, thereby maintaining cardiac homeostasis and potently preventing DCM development. These findings may provide serological clues for the noninvasive diagnosis of DCM in the future, and unambiguously shed new light on DCM pathogenesis and associated therapeutic targets
Project description:Phospholamban R14del mutazion (PLN-R14del) has been identified in a large family pedigree in which heterozygous carriers exhibited inherited dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) and death by middle age. To better understand the causal link between the mutations in PLN and DCM pathology, we derived induced pluripotent stem cells from a DCM patient carrying the PLN R14del mutation. We showed that iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes recapitulated the DCM-specific phenotype and demonstrated that either TALEN-mediated genetic correction or combinatorial gene therapy resulted in phenotypic rescue. Our findings offer novel insights into the pathogenesis caused by mutant PLN and point to the development of potential new therapeutics of pathogenic genetic variants associated with inherited cardiomyopathies. Submitter confirms there are no patient privacy concerns with these data. iPSCs were derived from a female patient carrying a heterozygous mutation (R14del) in the PLN gene. Tree samples were analyzed: R14del-CMs (clone L2), corrected R14del-CMs (clone L2GC1) and corrected R14del-CMs (clone L2GC2)
Project description:We conducted chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (ChIP-seq) and proximity ligation-assisted ChIP-seq (PLAC-seq) for enhancers and promoters (E-P) using left ventricular tissues from dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patients and non-heart failure (NF) donors. Differential active enhancer H3K27ac and promoter H3K4me3 regions were identified between NF and DCM. While the average read density (ARD) for H3K27ac is similar between NF and DCM, the ARD of H3K4me3 is significantly lower in DCM samples than in NF.Super-enhancer (SE) analysis revealed that 929 and 129 genes linked to NF- and DCM-specific SE, respectively, and three unique SE-associated genes between NF and DCM were identified.Moreover, the differential E-P interactions were observed in the known heart failure gene loci and are correlated with the gene expression levels. Motif analysis identified known cardiac factors and possible novel players for DCM. We have established cistrome of four histone modifications and long-range chromatin interaction for enhancers and promoters in NF and DCM tissues. The differential histone modifications and E-P interactions were found in DCM, and these differences were associated with the gene expression level of a subset of disease-associated genes in human heart failure.
Project description:We conducted chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (ChIP-seq) and proximity ligation-assisted ChIP-seq (PLAC-seq) for enhancers and promoters (E-P) using left ventricular tissues from dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patients and non-heart failure (NF) donors. Differential active enhancer H3K27ac and promoter H3K4me3 regions were identified between NF and DCM. While the average read density (ARD) for H3K27ac is similar between NF and DCM, the ARD of H3K4me3 is significantly lower in DCM samples than in NF.Super-enhancer (SE) analysis revealed that 929 and 129 genes linked to NF- and DCM-specific SE, respectively, and three unique SE-associated genes between NF and DCM were identified.Moreover, the differential E-P interactions were observed in the known heart failure gene loci and are correlated with the gene expression levels. Motif analysis identified known cardiac factors and possible novel players for DCM. We have established cistrome of four histone modifications and long-range chromatin interaction for enhancers and promoters in NF and DCM tissues. The differential histone modifications and E-P interactions were found in DCM, and these differences were associated with the gene expression level of a subset of disease-associated genes in human heart failure.
Project description:Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have been reported to play important roles in various cardiovascular diseases. However, their expression profile in human dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) has not been fully elucidated. In our study, heart samples from DCM patients and healthy controls were used to identify circRNAs by high-throughput sequencing. A total of 9585 circRNAs were identified in the DCM and control groups. To assess the differentially expressed circRNAs, the criteria were set as a fold change of ≥ 2 or ≤ 0.5 and a P value of < 0.05. Compared with circRNAs in the control group, 298 dysregulated circRNAs were identified in patients with DCM, of which 231 were upregulated and 85 were downregulated. In conclusion, our study evaluated cardiac circRNA expression in DCM by high-throughput sequencing and provide a foundation for future studies of circRNAs in DCM.
Project description:To explore the unique pathogenesis of DCM and analyzed the differences in gene expression, associated pathways and immune cell infiltration among different organs that are targeted by high glucose by bioinformatics-based strategy. In order to find the specific factors that trigger DCM, we contrasted the gene profile of DCM to that of other diabetic diseases including diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) and nephropathy (DN). we performed RNA-seq and miRNA sequencing on heart tissue from db/db mice to explore the transcriptome alterations in DCM pathogenesis including lncRNA, miRNA and mRNA.
Project description:Mutations in the LMNA gene causes set of disorders collectively referred to as laminopathies that include dilated cardiomyopathy. Lamin A/C proteins a components of nuclear lamina forms distinct nuclear domains called lamina associated domains (LADs). The roles of LADs in DCM is not known. To identify LADs and characterize their associations with CpG methylation and gene expression in human cardiac myocytes isolated from patients with DCM and controls we performed Chromatin immunoprecipitation-sequencing (ChIP-Seq), reduced representative bisulfite sequencing (RRBS), and RNA-sequencing (RNA-Seq) in 5 control and 5 DCM hearts with defined pathogenic variants in the LMNA gene. LADs are redistributed in DCM, are associated with CpG methylation and suppressed transcription, contributing to the pathogenesis of DCM in laminopathies.
Project description:This study attempts at investigating the changes in cardiac gene expression that occur in Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM). DCM in Dobermans and Boxers are the focus of this study. Control heart tissue as well as Pacing tissue used is from mongrel dogs. Keywords: control vs pacing vs disease; strain specific disease 3 Dobermans-DCM, 4 Boxers-DCM, 3 mongrels-control and 3 mongrels-pacing
Project description:We aimed to identify aberrantly expressed microRNA and mRNA expression profiles of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) and explore their potential functions, 10 DCM blood samples and paired healthy control blood samples underwent RNA-sequence.