Caloric excess or restriction mediated modulation of metabolic enzyme acetylation-proposed effects on cardiac growth and function

Assessing Cardiac Metabolism: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association

In a complex system of interrelated reactions, the heart converts chemical energy to mechanical energy. Energy transfer is achieved through coordinated activation of enzymes, ion channels, and contractile elements, as well as structural and membrane proteins. The heart's needs for energy are difficult to overestimate. At a time when the cardiovascular research community is discovering a plethora of new molecular methods to assess cardiac metabolism, the methods remain scattered in the literature. The present statement on "Assessing Cardiac Metabolism" seeks to provide a collective and curated resource on methods and models used to investigate established and emerging aspects of cardiac metabolism. Some of those methods are refinements of classic biochemical tools, whereas most others are recent additions from the powerful tools of molecular biology. The aim of this statement is to be useful to many and to do justice to a dynamic field of great complexity.

Post-translational modifications of the cardiac proteome in diabetes and heart failure

Cardiovascular complications are the leading cause of death in diabetic patients. Decades of research has focused on altered gene expression, altered cellular signaling, and altered metabolism. This work has led to better understanding of disease progression and treatments aimed at reversing or stopping this deadly process. However, one of the pieces needed to complete the puzzle and bridge the gap between altered gene expression and changes in signaling/metabolism is the proteome and its host of modifications. Defining the mechanisms of regulation includes examining protein levels, localization, and activity of the functional component of cellular machinery. Excess or misutilization of nutrients in obesity and diabetes may lead to PTMs contributing to cardiovascular disease progression. PTMs link regulation of metabolic changes in the healthy and diseased heart with regulation of gene expression itself (e.g. epigenetics), protein enzymatic activity (e.g. mitochondrial oxidative capacity), and function (e.g. contractile machinery). Although a number of PTMs are involved in each of these pathways, we will highlight the role of the serine and threonine O‐linked addition of β‐N‐acetyl‐glucosamine or O‐GlcNAcylation. This nexus of nutrient supply, utilization, and storage allows for the modification and translation of mitochondrial function to many other aspects of the cell.

AMPK and autophagy in glucose/glycogen metabolism

Glucose/glycogen metabolism is a primary metabolic pathway acting on a variety of cellular needs, such as proliferation, growth, and survival against stresses. The multiple regulatory mechanisms underlying a specific metabolic fate have been documented and explained the molecular basis of various pathophysiological conditions, including metabolic disorders and cancers. AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) has been appreciated for many years as a central metabolic regulator to inhibit energy-consuming pathways as well as to activate the compensating energy-producing programs. In fact, glucose starvation is a potent physiological AMPK activating condition, in which AMPK triggers various subsequent metabolic events depending on cells or tissues. Of note, the recent studies show bidirectional interplay between AMPK and glycogen. A growing number of studies have proposed additional level of metabolic regulation by a lysosome-dependent catabolic program, autophagy. Autophagy is a critical degradative pathway not only for maintenance of cellular homeostasis to remove potentially dangerous constituents, such as protein aggregates and dysfunctional subcellular organelles, but also for adaptive responses to metabolic stress, such as nutrient starvation. Importantly, many lines of evidence indicate that autophagy is closely connected with nutrient signaling modules, including AMPK, to fine-tune the metabolic pathways in response to many different cellular cues. In this review, we introduce the studies demonstrating the role of AMPK and autophagy in glucose/glycogen metabolism. Also, we describe the recent advances on their contributions to the metabolic disorders.

Nutritional models of foetal programming and nutrigenomic and epigenomic dysregulations of fatty acid metabolism in the liver and heart

Barker's concept of 'foetal programming' proposes that intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) predicts complex metabolic diseases through relationships that may be further modified by the postnatal environment. Dietary restriction and deficit in methyl donors, folate, vitamin B12, and choline are used as experimental conditions of foetal programming as they lead to IUGR and decreased birth weight. Overfeeding and deficit in methyl donors increase central fat mass and lead to a dramatic increase of plasma free fatty acids (FFA) in offspring. Conversely, supplementing the mothers under protein restriction with folic acid reverses metabolic and epigenomic phenotypes of offspring. High-fat diet or methyl donor deficiency (MDD) during pregnancy and lactation produce liver steatosis and myocardium hypertrophy that result from increased import of FFA and impaired fatty acid β-oxidation, respectively. The underlying molecular mechanisms show dysregulations related with similar decreased expression and activity of sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) and hyperacetylation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ coactivator 1α (PGC-1α). High-fat diet and overfeeding impair AMPK-dependent phosphorylation of PGC-1α, while MDD decreases PGC-1α methylation through decreased expression of PRMT1 and cellular level of S-adenosyl methionine. The visceral manifestations of metabolic syndrome are under the influence of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in overnourished animal models. These mechanisms should also deserve attention in the foetal programming effects of MDD since vitamin B12 influences ER stress through impaired SIRT1 deacetylation of HSF1. Taken together, similarities and synergies of high-fat diet and MDD suggest, therefore, considering their consecutive or contemporary influence in the mechanisms of complex metabolic diseases.

Obesity and Cardiac Function - The Role of Caloric Excess and its Reversal

Obesity is recognized as an independent and increasingly prevalent risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. This stems in part from the contribution of obesity towards insulin resistance and diabetes, which associate with premature atherosclerosis, enhanced thrombogenicity and activation of systemic inflammatory programs with resultant cardiovascular dysfunction. This review will focus on the more direct mechanisms underpinning obesity-associated cardiac pathophysiology including the metabolic consequences of lipid accumulation in the myocardium and the consequences of direct systemic effects of lipid toxicity. Furthermore, there is growing recognition that metabolic intermediates, which may be perturbed with caloric excess, may play an important role in intracellular signal transduction and on the post-translational control of metabolic functioning within the heart. As strategies to reverse obesity appear to have ameliorative cardiac effects, surgical and therapeutic approaches to facilitate weight reduction this will also be discussed.

Exploring the electrostatic repulsion model in the role of Sirt3 in directing MnSOD acetylation status and enzymatic activity

Mitochondrial oxidative metabolism is the major site of ATP production as well as a significant source of reactive oxygen species (ROS) that can cause damage to critical biomolecules. It is well known that mitochondrial enzymes that scavenge ROS are targeted by stress responsive proteins to maintain the fidelity of mitochondrial function. Manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) is a primary mitochondrial ROS scavenging enzyme, and in 1983 Irwin Fridovich proposed an elegant chemical mechanism/model whereby acetylation directs MnSOD enzymatic activity. He christened it the "electrostatic repulsion model." However, the biochemical and genetic mechanism(s) determining how acetylation directs activity and the reasons behind the evolutionarily conserved need for several layers of transcriptional and posttranslational MnSOD regulation remain unknown. In this regard, we and others have shown that MnSOD is regulated, at least in part, by the deacetylation of specific conserved lysines in a reaction catalyzed by the mitochondrial sirtuin, Sirt3. We speculate that the regulation of MnSOD activity by lysine acetylation via an electrostatic repulsion mechanism is a conserved and critical aspect of MnSOD regulation necessary to maintain mitochondrial homeostasis.

Regulation of mammalian mitochondrial translation by post-translational modifications

Mitochondria are responsible for the production of over 90% of the energy in eukaryotes through oxidative phosphorylation performed by electron transfer and ATP synthase complexes. Mitochondrial translation machinery is responsible for the synthesis of 13 essential proteins of these complexes encoded by the mitochondrial genome. Emerging data suggest that acetyl-CoA, NAD(+), and ATP are involved in regulation of this machinery through post-translational modifications of its protein components. Recent high-throughput proteomics analyses and mapping studies have provided further evidence for phosphorylation and acetylation of ribosomal proteins and translation factors. Here, we will review our current knowledge related to these modifications and their possible role(s) in the regulation of mitochondrial protein synthesis using the homology between mitochondrial and bacterial translation machineries. However, we have yet to determine the effects of phosphorylation and acetylation of translation components in mammalian mitochondrial biogenesis. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Mitochondrial Gene Expression.

The role of sirtuins in modulating redox stressors

For much of the time since their discovery, the sirtuin family of deacetylase enzymes has been associated with extension of life span. This longevity-promoting capacity in numerous model systems has enabled the sirtuins to gain "celebrity status" in the field of aging research. However, the mechanisms underpinning these changes remain incompletely defined. A general phenotype long associated with aging is the dysregulation of biological systems, which partly occurs via the accumulation of damage over time. One of the major sources of this damage is oxidative stress, which can harm both biological structures and the mechanisms with which they are repaired. It is now becoming clear that the beneficial life-span effects of sirtuins, along with many of their other functions, are closely linked to their ability to regulate systems that control the redox environment. Here we investigate the links between sirtuins and their oxidative/redox environment and review the control mechanisms that are regulated by the activity of sirtuin deacetylase proteins.

Emerging characterization of the role of SIRT3-mediated mitochondrial protein deacetylation in the heart

Studies to quantify the protein acetylome show that lysine-residue acetylation rivals phosphorylation in prevalence as a posttranslational modification. Interesting, this posttranslational modification is modified by nutrient flux and by redox stress and targets the vast majority of metabolic pathway proteins in the mitochondria. Furthermore, the mitochondrial deacetylase enzyme SIRT3 appears to be regulated by exercise in skeletal muscle and in response to pressure overload in the heart. The alteration of protein lysine residues by acetylation and the enzymes controlling deacetylation are beginning to be explored as important regulatory events in the control of mitochondrial function and homeostasis. This review focuses on the mitochondrial targets of SIRT3 that are functionally implicated in heart biology and pathology and on the direct cardiac consequences of the genetic manipulation of SIRT3. As therapeutic modulators of other SIRT isoforms have been identified, the longer-term objective of our understanding of this biology would be to identify SIRT3 modulators as putative cardiac therapeutic agents.

The role of SIRT3 in mitochondrial homeostasis and cardiac adaptation to hypertrophy and aging

Although acetyl-modification of protein lysine residues has been recognized for many decades, the appreciation that this post-translational modification is highly prevalent in mitochondria and plays a pivotal regulatory role in mitochondrial function has only become apparent since 2006. The classical biological stressors that modulate mitochondrial protein acetylation include alterations in caloric levels and redox signaling and the major enzyme orchestrating deacetylation is the mitochondrial enriched sirtuin SIRT3. Overall the action of SIRT3 modulates mitochondrial homeostasis and SIRT3 target proteins include mediators of energy metabolism and mitochondrial redox stress adaptive program proteins. Given these effects, it is not surprising that the role of SIRT3 has begun to be implicated in cardiac biology. This review gives a brief overview of sirtuin biology and then focuses on the role of the SIRT3 regulatory program in the control of cardiac hypertrophy and aging. This article is part of a Special Section entitled "Post-translational Modification."

Hormesis, cellular stress response and vitagenes as critical determinants in aging and longevity

Understanding mechanisms of aging and determinants of life span will help to reduce age-related morbidity and facilitate healthy aging. Average lifespan has increased over the last centuries, as a consequence of medical and environmental factors, but maximal life span remains unchanged. Extension of maximal life span is currently possible in animal models with measures such as genetic manipulations and caloric restriction (CR). CR appears to prolong life by reducing reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated oxidative damage. But ROS formation, which is positively implicated in cellular stress response mechanisms, is a highly regulated process controlled by a complex network of intracellular signaling pathways. By sensing the intracellular nutrient and energy status, the functional state of mitochondria, and the concentration of ROS produced in mitochondria, the longevity network regulates life span across species by co-ordinating information flow along its convergent, divergent and multiply branched signaling pathways, including vitagenes which are genes involved in preserving cellular homeostasis during stressful conditions. Vitagenes encode for heat shock proteins (Hsp) Hsp32, Hsp70, the thioredoxin and the sirtuin protein systems. Dietary antioxidants, such as carnosine, carnitines or polyphenols, have recently been demonstrated to be neuroprotective through the activation of hormetic pathways, including vitagenes. The hormetic dose-response, challenges long-standing beliefs about the nature of the dose-response in a lowdose zone, having the potential to affect significantly the design of pre-clinical studies and clinical trials as well as strategies for optimal patient dosing in the treatment of numerous diseases. Given the broad cytoprotective properties of the heat shock response there is now strong interest in discovering and developing pharmacological agents capable of inducing stress responses. In this review we discuss the most current and up to date understanding of the possible signaling mechanisms by which caloric restriction, as well hormetic caloric restriction-mimetics compounds by activating vitagenes can enhance defensive systems involved in bioenergetic and stress resistance homeostasis with consequent impact on longevity processes.