Friday, June 19, 2015

Vinculin involvement in regulation of heart function during aging

Kaushik G, Spenlehauer A, Sessions AO, Trujillo AS, Fuhrmann A, Fu Z, Venkatraman V, Pohl D, Tuler J, Wang M, Lakatta EG, Ocorr K, Bodmer R, Bernstein SI, Van Eyk JE, Cammarato A, Engler AJ. Vinculin network-mediated cytoskeletal remodeling regulates contractile function in the aging heart. Sci Transl Med. 2015 Jun 17;7(292):292ra99. PMID: 26084806.

From the abstract: "The human heart is capable of functioning for decades despite minimal cell turnover or regeneration, suggesting that molecular alterations help sustain heart function with age. However, identification of compensatory remodeling events in the aging heart remains elusive. We present the cardiac proteomes of young and old rhesus monkeys and rats, from which we show that certain age-associated remodeling events within the cardiomyocyte cytoskeleton are highly conserved and beneficial rather than deleterious. Targeted transcriptomic analysis in Drosophila confirmed conservation and implicated vinculin as a unique molecular regulator of cardiac function during aging. ... Moreover, cardiac-specific vinculin overexpression increased median life span by more than 150% in flies. ... These findings suggest that the heart has molecular mechanisms to sustain performance and promote longevity, which may be assisted by therapeutic intervention to ameliorate the decline of function in aging patient hearts."

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