Cardiac-specific deletion of calcineurin B1 in mice causes lethal cardiomyopathy and defective excitation-contraction coupling, demonstrating the critical role of calcineurin signaling in postnatal cardiac function and calcium homeostasis.
No immediate clinical implications; leaves open calcineurin B1 as a potential therapeutic target in human cardiomyopathy.
To define the necessity of calcineurin (Cn) signaling for cardiac maturation and function, the postnatal phenotype of mice with cardiac-specific targeted ablation of the Cn B1 regulatory subunit (Ppp3r1) gene (csCnb1(-/-) mice) was characterized. csCnb1(-/-) mice develop a lethal cardiomyopathy, characterized by impaired postnatal growth of the heart and combined systolic and diastolic relaxation abnormalities, despite a lack of structural derangements. Notably, the csCnb1(-/-) hearts did not exhibit diastolic dilatation, despite the severe functional phenotype. Myocytes isolated from the mutant mice exhibited reduced rates of contraction/relaxation and abnormalities in calcium transients, consistent with altered sarcoplasmic reticulum loading. Levels of sarco(endo) plasmic reticulum Ca-ATPase 2a (Atp2a2) and phospholamban were normal, but phospholamban phosphorylation was markedly reduced at Ser(16) and Thr(17). In addition, levels of the Na/Ca exchanger (Slc8a1) were modestly reduced. These results define a novel mouse model of cardiac-specific Cn deficiency and demonstrate novel links between Cn signaling, postnatal growth of the heart, pathological ventricular remodeling, and excitation-contraction coupling.
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Schaeffer et al. (2009) studied this question.
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