Curcumin is a naturally occurring p300-histone acetyltransferase (p300-HAT) inhibitor that suppresses cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and the development of heart failure in experimental animal models. To enhance the therapeutic potential of curcumin against heart failure, we produced a series of synthetic curcumin analogues and investigated their inhibitory activity against p300-HAT. The compound with the strongest activity was further evaluated to determine its effects on cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and pressure overload-induced heart failure in mice. We synthesised five synthetic curcumin analogues and found that a compound we have named GO-Y030 most strongly inhibited p300-HAT activity. Furthermore, 1 μM GO-Y030, in a manner equivalent to 10 µM curcumin, suppressed phenylephrineinduced hypertrophic responses in cultured cardiomyocytes. In mice undergoing transverse aortic constriction surgery, administration of GO-Y030 at a mere 1% of an equivalently-effective dose of curcumin significantly attenuated cardiac hypertrophy and systolic dysfunction.
In addition, this low dose of GO-Y030 almost completely blocked histone H3K9 acetylation and eliminated left ventricular fibrosis. A low dose of the synthetic curcumin analogue GO-Y030 effectively inhibits p300-HAT activity and markedly suppresses the development of heart failure in mice.open Scientific RepoRtS | (2020) 10:7172 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-64207-w www.nature.com/scientificreports www.nature.com/scientificreports/ vivo, when transgenic mice overexpressing intact p300 in the heart undergo myocardial infarction surgery, they show significantly more progressive LV remodeling than wild-type mice undergoing the same surgery. However, when transgenic mice overexpressing mutant p300 that lacks HAT activity in the heart undergo the surgery, their degree of LV remodelling is similar to that of the wild-type mice 7 . These findings indicate that the HAT activity of p300 plays a key role in LV remodelling and systolic dysfunction, suggesting that this activity may be a target for heart failure treatment.Curcumin ((1E,6E)-1,7-bis(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)hepta-1,6-diene-3,5-dione) is a polyphenol derived from Curcuma longa. It is reported to have a variety of functions, including anticancer, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory activities 8-10 . Additionally, Balasubramanyam et al. reported that curcumin inhibits p300-specific HAT activity 11 . We previously found both that curcumin suppresses cardiomyocyte hypertrophy by inhibiting the acetylation of GATA4 and histones, and that the oral administration of curcumin at a dose of 50 mg/kg prevents the development of heart failure in rat models of hypertension and myocardial infarction 12,13 . Curcumin is a natural compound and is now widely used as a dietary supplement 14,15 . However, to develop a novel drug for heart failure therapy in the clinical setting, it is necessary to synthesise novel curcumin analogues which have much stronger activity than natural curcumin.In the present study, we examined structure-acti...