Published in

MDPI, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 13(23), p. 7387, 2022

DOI: 10.3390/ijms23137387

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Diet-Induced Hypercholesterolemia Leads to Cardiac Dysfunction and Alterations in the Myocardial Proteome

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Published version: archiving allowed
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Elevated blood cholesterol is a major risk factor for coronary heart disease. Moreover, direct effects on the myocardium also contribute to the adverse effects of hypercholesterolemia. Here, we investigated the effect of hypercholesterolemia on the cardiac proteome. Male Wistar rats were fed with a laboratory rodent chow supplemented with 2% cholesterol for 8 weeks to induce hypercholesterolemia. The protein expression data obtained from the proteomic characterization of left ventricular samples from normo- and hypercholesterolemic animals were subjected to gene ontology (GO) and protein interaction analyses. Elevated circulating cholesterol levels were accompanied by diastolic dysfunction in cholesterol-fed rats. The proteomic characterization of left ventricular samples revealed altered expression of 45 proteins due to hypercholesterolemia. Based on the Gene Ontology analysis, hypercholesterolemia was associated with disturbed expression of cytoskeletal and contractile proteins. Beta-actin was downregulated in the hypercholesterolemic myocardium, and established a prominent hub of the protein interaction network. Analysis of the unfiltered dataset revealed concordant downregulated expression patterns in proteins associated with the arrangement of the contractile system (e.g., cardiac-specific troponins and myosin complex), and in subunits of the mitochondrial respiratory chain. We conclude that the observed changes in the cardiac proteome may contribute to the development of diastolic dysfunction in hypercholesterolemia.