Muscle specific stress fibers give rise to sarcomeres in cardiomyocytes
Abstract
The sarcomere is the contractile unit within cardiomyocytes driving heart muscle contraction. We sought to test the mechanisms regulating actin and myosin filament assembly during sarcomere formation. Therefore, we developed an assay using human cardiomyocytes to monitor sarcomere assembly. We report a population of muscle stress fibers, similar to actin arcs in non-muscle cells, which are essential sarcomere precursors. We show sarcomeric actin filaments arise directly from muscle stress fibers. This requires formins (e.g., FHOD3), non-muscle myosin IIA and non-muscle myosin IIB. Furthermore, we show short cardiac myosin II filaments grow to form ~1.5 µm long filaments that then 'stitch' together to form the stack of filaments at the core of the sarcomere (i.e., the A-band). A-band assembly is dependent on the proper organization of actin filaments and, as such, is also dependent on FHOD3 and myosin IIB. We use this experimental paradigm to present evidence for a unifying model of sarcomere assembly.
Data availability
Sequencing data have been deposited in GEO under accession codes GSE119743. All other data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.
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Cardiomyocyte mRNA ContentNCBI Gene Expression Omnibus, GSE119743.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (R35 GM125028)
- Dylan Tyler Burnette
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (F31 HL136081)
- Aidan M Fenix
American Heart Association (16PRE29100014)
- Aidan M Fenix
National Cancer Institute (P50 CA095103)
- Dylan Tyler Burnette
American Heart Association (17SDG33460353)
- Dylan Tyler Burnette
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (RO1 HL037675)
- David Mansfield bader
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (K08 HL116803)
- Jason R Becker
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2018, Fenix et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Further reading
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Background:
It has been reported that loss of PCBP2 led to increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and accelerated cell aging. Knockdown of PCBP2 in HCT116 cells leads to significant downregulation of fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2). Here, we tried to elucidate the intrinsic factors and potential mechanisms of bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells (BMSCs) aging from the interactions among PCBP2, ROS, and FGF2.
Methods:
Unlabeled quantitative proteomics were performed to show differentially expressed proteins in the replicative senescent human bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells (RS-hBMSCs). ROS and FGF2 were detected in the loss-and-gain cell function experiments of PCBP2. The functional recovery experiments were performed to verify whether PCBP2 regulates cell function through ROS/FGF2-dependent ways.
Results:
PCBP2 expression was significantly lower in P10-hBMSCs. Knocking down the expression of PCBP2 inhibited the proliferation while accentuated the apoptosis and cell arrest of RS-hBMSCs. PCBP2 silence could increase the production of ROS. On the contrary, overexpression of PCBP2 increased the viability of both P3-hBMSCs and P10-hBMSCs significantly. Meanwhile, overexpression of PCBP2 led to significantly reduced expression of FGF2. Overexpression of FGF2 significantly offset the effect of PCBP2 overexpression in P10-hBMSCs, leading to decreased cell proliferation, increased apoptosis, and reduced G0/G1 phase ratio of the cells.
Conclusions:
This study initially elucidates that PCBP2 as an intrinsic aging factor regulates the replicative senescence of hBMSCs through the ROS-FGF2 signaling axis.
Funding:
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82172474).
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- Cancer Biology
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