Circulation Research, Vol 74, 740-746, Copyright © 1994 by American Heart Association

ARTICLES

Alpha-skeletal actin is associated with increased contractility in the mouse heart

TE Hewett, IL Grupp, G Grupp and J Robbins
Cincinnati Sportsmedicine Research and Education Foundation, University of Cincinnati, College of Medicine, Ohio.

BALB/c mice express abnormally high levels of alpha-skeletal actin in the heart, which may be related to a duplication in the promoter of the alpha-cardiac actin gene. To evaluate the effects of overexpression of the alpha-skeletal actin isoform on cardiac contractile function, we studied these mice using the isolated perfused work-performing murine heart model and measured actin isoform expression in the same hearts. We quantified myocardial contractility from the maximum rate of contraction (+dP/dt) and time to peak pressure and relaxation from - dP/dt and time to half relaxation of left intraventricular pressure. Dot blots of total RNA hybridized against oligonucleotide sequences specific for either alpha-skeletal or alpha-cardiac actin mRNA showed that increased levels of alpha-skeletal actin RNA correlated significantly with increased contractility of hearts from the BALB/c mice (r = .80, n = 15, P < .001). The present study demonstrates a significant functional correlation between alpha-actin isoform content and cardiac contractile function and also that alpha-skeletal actin may promote an increased contractile function in the heart compared with alpha-cardiac actin.

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