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The heart is an organ with high energy demands and metabolic flexibility, thus allowing for various energy substrates for ATP production under different physiological conditions. Zhang et al., Fernandez-Caggiano et al. and McCommis et al. converge on the mitochondrial pyruvate transporter as a key metabolic hub for the maintenance of cardiac metabolism and a critical determinant of cardiac metabolic plasticity during heart failure.

Heart failure remains the most common cause of death in the industrialized world. In spite of new therapeutic interventions that are constantly being developed, it is still not possible to completely protect against heart failure development and progression. This shows how much more research is necessary to understand the underlying mechanisms of this process. In this review, we give a detailed overview of the contribution of impaired mitochondrial dynamics and energy homeostasis during heart failure progression. In particular, we focus on the regulation of fatty acid metabolism and the effects of fatty acid accumulation on mitochondrial structural and functional homeostasis.

BackgroundOversupply of fatty acids (FAs) to cardiomyocytes (CMs) is associated with increased ceramide content and elevated the risk of lipotoxic cardiomyopathy. Here we investigate the role of ceramide accumulation on mitochondrial function and mitophagy in cardiac lipotoxicity using CMs derived from human-induced pluripotent stem cells (h-iPSCs). Methods and resultsMature CMs derived from h-iPSCs exposed to the diabetic-like environment or transfected with plasmids overexpressing serine-palmitoyltransferase long chain base subunit 1 (SPTLC1), a subunit of the serine-palmitoyltransferase (SPT) complex, resulted in increased intracellular ceramide levels. Accumulation of ceramides impaired insulin-dependent phosphorylation of Akt through activating protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) and disturbed gene and protein levels of key metabolic enzymes including GLUT4, AMPK, PGC-1α, PPARα, CD36, PDK4, and PPARγ compared to controls. Analysis of CMs oxidative metabolism using a Seahorse analyzer showed a significant reduction in ATP synthesis-related O2 consumption, mitochondrial basal respiration and respiratory capacity, indicating an impaired mitochondrial function under diabetic-like conditions or SPTLC1-overexpression. Further, ceramide accumulation increased mitochondrial fission regulators such as dynamin-related protein 1 (DRP1) and mitochondrial fission factor (MFF) as well as auto/mitophagic proteins LC3B and PINK-1 compared to control. Incubation of CMs with the specific SPT inhibitor (myriocin) showed a significant increase in mitochondrial fusion regulators the mitofusin 2 (MFN2) and optic atrophy 1 (OPA1) as well as p-Akt, PGC-1 α, GLUT-4, and ATP production. In addition, a significant decrease in auto/mitophagy and apoptosis was found in CMs treated with myriocin.ConclusionsOur results suggest that ceramide accumulation has important implications in driving insulin resistance, oxidative stress, increased auto/mitophagy, and mitochondrial dysfunction in the setting of lipotoxic cardiomyopathy. Therefore, modulation of the de novo ceramide synthesis pathway may serve as a novel therapeutic target to treat metabolic cardiomyopathy.

Background Prostaglandin E 2 has long been known to be an immune modulator. It is released after tissue injury and plays a role in modulating macrophage activities, which are essential for tissue regeneration. However, the involvement of prostaglandin E 2 receptor 2 ( EP 2)–dependent regulation of macrophages in postischemic heart is unclear. This study aims to evaluate the role of EP 2 in damaged heart. Methods and Results The effect of EP 2 in postischemic heart was evaluated using EP 2‐deficient transgenic mice. We demonstrated that cardiac function was worse after myocardial injury on loss of EP 2. Furthermore, EP 2 deficiency also altered proinflammatory response and resulted in a defect in macrophage recruitment to the injured myocardium. Transcriptome analysis revealed that the expression of erythroid differentiation regulator 1 ( Erdr1 ) was significantly induced in EP 2‐deficient macrophages. Knocking down Erdr1 expression restored migration ability of EP 2‐deficient cells both in vitro and in vivo. By using a genetic fate‐mapping approach, we showed that abolishment of EP 2 expression effectively attenuated cell replenishment. Conclusions The EP 2‐dependent signaling pathway plays a critical role in regulating macrophage recruitment to the injured myocardium, thereby exerting a function in modulating the inflammatory microenvironment for cardiac repair.

Differential cell motility, which plays a key role in many developmental processes, is perhaps most evident in examples of pattern formation in which the different cell types arise intermingled before sorting out into discrete tissues. This is thought to require heterogeneities in responsiveness to differentiation-inducing signals that result in the activation of cell type-specific genes and ‘salt and pepper’ patterning. How differential gene expression results in cell sorting is poorly defined. Here we describe a novel gene (hfnA) that provides the first mechanistic link between cell signalling, differential gene expression and cell type-specific sorting in Dictyostelium. HfnA defines a novel group of evolutionarily conserved HECT ubiquitin ligases with an N-terminal filamin domain (HFNs). HfnA expression is induced by the stalk differentiation-inducing factor DIF-1 and is restricted to a subset of prestalk cells (pstO). hfnA− pstO cells differentiate but their sorting out is delayed. Genetic interactions suggest that this is due to misregulation of filamin complex activity. Overexpression of filamin complex members phenocopies the hfnA− pstO cell sorting defect, whereas disruption of filamin complex function in a wild-type background results in pstO cells sorting more strongly. Filamin disruption in an hfnA− background rescues pstO cell localisation. hfnA− cells exhibit altered slug phototaxis phenotypes consistent with filamin complex hyperactivity. We propose that HfnA regulates filamin complex activity and cell type-specific motility through the breakdown of filamin complexes. These findings provide a novel mechanism for filamin regulation and demonstrate that filamin is a crucial mechanistic link between responses to differentiation signals and cell movement in patterning based on ‘salt and pepper’ differentiation and sorting out.