Abstract-Caveolae are omega-shaped organelles of the cell surface. The protein caveolin-3, a structural component of cardiac caveolae, is associated with cellular signaling. To investigate the effect of adenovirus-mediated overexpression of caveolin-3 on hypertrophic responses in cardiomyocytes, we constructed an adenovirus that encoded human wild-type caveolin-3 (Ad.Cav-3), mutant caveolin-3 (Ad.Cav-3⌬), or bacterial ␤-galactosidase (Ad.LacZ). This mutant has been reported to cause human limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. It lacks 9 nucleotides in the caveolin scaffolding domain and behaves in a dominant-negative fashion. Rat neonatal cardiomyocytes were infected with the virus and then harvested 36 hours after infection. In noninfected cells, phenylephrine (PE) and endothelin-1 (ET) increased cell size and [ 3 H]leucine incorporation, along with the induction of sarcomeric reorganization and the reexpression of ␤-myosin heavy chain, indicating myocyte hypertrophy. Infection with Ad.LacZ had no effect on those parameters. Ad.Cav-3 prevented the PE-and ET-induced increases in cell size, leucine incorporation, sarcomeric reorganization, and reexpression of ␤-myosin heavy chain. Ad.Cav-3 also blocked the PE-and ET-induced phosphorylations of extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERKs) but did not affect c-Jun amino-terminal kinase and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase activities. In contrast, Ad.Cav-3⌬ significantly augmented hypertrophic responses to ET, which were associated with increased ET-induced phosphorylation of ERK1/2. These results suggest that caveolin-3 behaves as a negative regulator of hypertrophic responses, probably through suppression of ERK1/2 activity.

Gene expression profiling has been conducted in rat hearts subjected to pressure overload (PO).

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Recent studies have indicated that caveolae are enriched in a variety of signaling molecules, some of which are associated with cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. Caveolin-3, a major constituent of cardiac caveolae, has been suggested to interact with several signaling molecules. We investigated the morphologic changes of caveolae and caveolin-3 expression in hypertrophied cardiomyocytes induced by an alpha1-adrenergic agonist. Cultured rat neonatal cardiomyocytes were used for the experiments. Phenylephrine induced cellular hypertrophy associated with an increase of the number of caveolae and an up-regulation of caveolin-3. Although PMA increased the number of caveolae and the caveolin-3 expression, the extent of these up-regulations was less than that by phenylephrine. Moreover, ionomycin increased the number of caveolae and up-regulated caveolin-3 as much as phenylephrine. Phenylephrine-induced up-regulations of caveolae and caveolin-3 expression were inhibited by BAPTA, suggesting that the intracellular Ca2+ is involved in those regulations. Inhibitors of calcineurin and Ca2+calmodulin-dependent kinase II attenuated the phenylephrine-induced up-regulation of caveolin-3. In pressure-overloaded rat hearts, caveolin-3 protein levels were increased compared with sham-operated rats. In conclusion, the number of caveolae and the expression of caveolin-3 were up-regulated in rat hypertrophied cardiomyocytes, possibly via the alterations of intracellular Ca2+ and protein kinase C.

Five unrelated patients harboring the A3243G mutation in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) but presenting with different clinical phenotype were studied for their percentage of mutation at the single muscle fiber levels. One patient had a clinically and pathologically defined Leigh syndrome (LS), two showed mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes (MELAS), another showed progressive external ophthalmoplegia (PEO), and the other showed mitochondrial diabetes mellitus (MDM). The mutation load was greater in the muscle from the patient with LS (92%), who showed more than 80% even in the non-ragged red fibers (RRF) and also presented the highest proportion of RRF. The patients with MELAS had lower mutation levels as well as a lower proportion of RRF, and these two parameters were even lower in the PEO and MDM patients. These results were consistent with the concept that differences in the mutation load and in the somatic distribution of the mutation among different cells and tissues are responsible for the differences in phenotypical expression of the disease.