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Moreira-Costa L, Tavares-Silva M, Almeida-Coelho J, Gonçalves A, Trindade F, Vasques-Nóvoa F, Sousa-Mendes C, Leite S, Vitorino R, Falcão-Pires I, Leite-Moreira AF, Lourenço AP. Acute and chronic effects of levosimendan in the ZSF1 obese rat model of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. Eur J Pharmacol 2024; 966:176336. [PMID: 38272343 DOI: 10.1016/j.ejphar.2024.176336] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/22/2023] [Revised: 01/02/2024] [Accepted: 01/16/2024] [Indexed: 01/27/2024]
Abstract
Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is a syndrome characterized by impaired cardiovascular reserve in which therapeutic options are scarce. Our aim was to evaluate the inodilator levosimendan in the ZSF1 obese rat model of HFpEF. Twenty-week-old male Wistar-Kyoto (WKY), ZSF1 lean (ZSF1 Ln) and ZSF1 obese rats chronically treated for 6-weeks with either levosimendan (1 mg/kg/day, ZSF1 Ob + Levo) or vehicle (ZSF1 Ob + Veh) underwent peak-effort testing, pressure-volume (PV) haemodynamic evaluation and echocardiography (n = 7 each). Samples were collected for histology and western blotting. In obese rats, skinned and intact left ventricular (LV) cardiomyocytes underwent in vitro functional evaluation. Seven additional ZSF1 obese rats underwent PV evaluation to assess acute levosimendan effects (10 μg/kg + 0.1 μg/kg/min). ZSF1 Ob + Veh presented all hallmarks of HFpEF, namely effort intolerance, elevated end-diastolic pressures and reduced diastolic compliance as well as increased LV mass and left atrial area, cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and increased interstitial fibrosis. Levosimendan decreased systemic arterial pressures, raised cardiac index, and enhanced LV relaxation and diastolic compliance in both acute and chronic experiments. ZSF1 Ob + Levo showed pronounced attenuation of hypertrophy and interstitial fibrosis alongside increased effort tolerance (endured workload raised 38 %) and maximum O2 consumption. Skinned cardiomyocytes from ZSF 1 Ob + Levo showed a downward shift in sarcomere length-passive tension relationship and intact cardiomyocytes showed decreased diastolic Ca2+ levels and enhanced Ca2+ sensitivity. On molecular grounds, levosimendan enhanced phosphorylation of phospholamban and mammalian target of rapamycin. The observed effects encourage future clinical trials with levosimendan in a broad population of HFpEF patients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Liliana Moreira-Costa
- Cardiovascular R&D Centre - UnIC@RISE, Department of Surgery and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal.
| | - Marta Tavares-Silva
- Cardiovascular R&D Centre - UnIC@RISE, Department of Surgery and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal; Department of Cardiology, Centro Hospitalar Universitário São João, Porto, Portugal
| | - João Almeida-Coelho
- Cardiovascular R&D Centre - UnIC@RISE, Department of Surgery and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
| | - Alexandre Gonçalves
- Cardiovascular R&D Centre - UnIC@RISE, Department of Surgery and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
| | - Fábio Trindade
- Cardiovascular R&D Centre - UnIC@RISE, Department of Surgery and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
| | - Francisco Vasques-Nóvoa
- Cardiovascular R&D Centre - UnIC@RISE, Department of Surgery and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal; Department of Medicine, Centro Hospitalar Universitário São João, Porto, Portugal
| | - Cláudia Sousa-Mendes
- Cardiovascular R&D Centre - UnIC@RISE, Department of Surgery and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
| | - Sara Leite
- Cardiovascular R&D Centre - UnIC@RISE, Department of Surgery and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
| | - Rui Vitorino
- Cardiovascular R&D Centre - UnIC@RISE, Department of Surgery and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal; Department of Medical Sciences, Institute of Biomedicine (iBiMED), University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal
| | - Inês Falcão-Pires
- Cardiovascular R&D Centre - UnIC@RISE, Department of Surgery and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal
| | - Adelino F Leite-Moreira
- Cardiovascular R&D Centre - UnIC@RISE, Department of Surgery and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal; Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Centro Hospitalar Universitário São João, Porto, Portugal
| | - André P Lourenço
- Cardiovascular R&D Centre - UnIC@RISE, Department of Surgery and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal; Department of Anaesthesiology, Centro Hospitalar Universitário São João, Porto, Portugal
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Rodero C, Longobardi S, Augustin C, Strocchi M, Plank G, Lamata P, Niederer SA. Calibration of Cohorts of Virtual Patient Heart Models Using Bayesian History Matching. Ann Biomed Eng 2023; 51:241-252. [PMID: 36271218 PMCID: PMC9832095 DOI: 10.1007/s10439-022-03095-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2022] [Accepted: 09/29/2022] [Indexed: 01/28/2023]
Abstract
Previous patient-specific model calibration techniques have treated each patient independently, making the methods expensive for large-scale clinical adoption. In this work, we show how we can reuse simulations to accelerate the patient-specific model calibration pipeline. To represent anatomy, we used a Statistical Shape Model and to represent function, we ran electrophysiological simulations. We study the use of 14 biomarkers to calibrate the model, training one Gaussian Process Emulator (GPE) per biomarker. To fit the models, we followed a Bayesian History Matching (BHM) strategy, wherein each iteration a region of the parameter space is ruled out if the emulation with that set of parameter values produces is "implausible". We found that without running any extra simulations we can find 87.41% of the non-implausible parameter combinations. Moreover, we showed how reducing the uncertainty of the measurements from 10 to 5% can reduce the final parameter space by 6 orders of magnitude. This innovation allows for a model fitting technique, therefore reducing the computational load of future biomedical studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cristobal Rodero
- Cardiac Electro-Mechanics Research Group (CEMRG), Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences Department, King's College London, London, UK.
- Cardiac Modelling and Imaging Biomarkers (CMIB), Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences Department, King's College London, London, UK.
| | - Stefano Longobardi
- Cardiac Electro-Mechanics Research Group (CEMRG), Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences Department, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Christoph Augustin
- Institute of Biophysics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria
- BioTechMed-Graz, Graz, Austria
| | - Marina Strocchi
- Cardiac Electro-Mechanics Research Group (CEMRG), Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences Department, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Gernot Plank
- Institute of Biophysics, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria
- BioTechMed-Graz, Graz, Austria
| | - Pablo Lamata
- Cardiac Modelling and Imaging Biomarkers (CMIB), Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences Department, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Steven A Niederer
- Cardiac Electro-Mechanics Research Group (CEMRG), Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences Department, King's College London, London, UK
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Parra-Lucares A, Romero-Hernández E, Villa E, Weitz-Muñoz S, Vizcarra G, Reyes M, Vergara D, Bustamante S, Llancaqueo M, Toro L. New Opportunities in Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction: From Bench to Bedside… and Back. Biomedicines 2022; 11:70. [PMID: 36672578 PMCID: PMC9856156 DOI: 10.3390/biomedicines11010070] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/10/2022] [Revised: 12/07/2022] [Accepted: 12/13/2022] [Indexed: 12/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is a growing public health problem in nearly 50% of patients with heart failure. Therefore, research on new strategies for its diagnosis and management has become imperative in recent years. Few drugs have successfully improved clinical outcomes in this population. Therefore, numerous attempts are being made to find new pharmacological interventions that target the main mechanisms responsible for this disease. In recent years, pathological mechanisms such as cardiac fibrosis and inflammation, alterations in calcium handling, NO pathway disturbance, and neurohumoral or mechanic impairment have been evaluated as new pharmacological targets showing promising results in preliminary studies. This review aims to analyze the new strategies and mechanical devices, along with their initial results in pre-clinical and different phases of ongoing clinical trials for HFpEF patients. Understanding new mechanisms to generate interventions will allow us to create methods to prevent the adverse outcomes of this silent pandemic.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alfredo Parra-Lucares
- Critical Care Unit, Department of Medicine, Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380420, Chile
- MD PhD Program, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380420, Chile
| | - Esteban Romero-Hernández
- MD PhD Program, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380420, Chile
- Division of Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380420, Chile
| | - Eduardo Villa
- School of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380420, Chile
| | - Sebastián Weitz-Muñoz
- Division of Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380420, Chile
| | - Geovana Vizcarra
- Division of Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380420, Chile
| | - Martín Reyes
- School of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380420, Chile
| | - Diego Vergara
- School of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380420, Chile
| | - Sergio Bustamante
- Coronary Care Unit, Cardiovascular Department, Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380420, Chile
| | - Marcelo Llancaqueo
- Coronary Care Unit, Cardiovascular Department, Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380420, Chile
| | - Luis Toro
- Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine, Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380420, Chile
- Centro de Investigación Clínica Avanzada, Hospital Clínico, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8380420, Chile
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Longobardi S, Sher A, Niederer SA. Quantitative mapping of force-pCa curves to whole heart contraction and relaxation. J Physiol 2022; 600:3497-3516. [PMID: 35737959 PMCID: PMC9540007 DOI: 10.1113/jp283352] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/21/2022] [Accepted: 06/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Abstract The force–pCa (F–pCa) curve is used to characterize steady‐state contractile properties of cardiac muscle cells in different physiological, pathological and pharmacological conditions. This provides a reduced preparation in which to isolate sarcomere mechanisms. However, it is unclear how changes in the F–pCa curve impact emergent whole‐heart mechanics quantitatively. We study the link between sarcomere and whole‐heart function using a multiscale mathematical model of rat biventricular mechanics that describes sarcomere, tissue, anatomy, preload and afterload properties quantitatively. We first map individual cell‐level changes in sarcomere‐regulating parameters to organ‐level changes in the left ventricular function described by pressure–volume loop characteristics (e.g. end‐diastolic and end‐systolic volumes, ejection fraction and isovolumetric relaxation time). We next map changes in the sarcomere‐regulating parameters to changes in the F–pCa curve. We demonstrate that a change in the F–pCa curve can be caused by multiple different changes in sarcomere properties. We demonstrate that changes in sarcomere properties cause non‐linear and, importantly, non‐monotonic changes in left ventricular function. As a result, a change in sarcomere properties yielding changes in the F–pCa curve that improve contractility does not guarantee an improvement in whole‐heart function. Likewise, a desired change in whole‐heart function (i.e. ejection fraction or relaxation time) is not caused by a unique shift in the F–pCa curve. Changes in the F–pCa curve alone cannot be used to predict the impact of a compound on whole‐heart function.
![]() Key points The force–pCa (F–pCa) curve is used to assess myofilament calcium sensitivity after pharmacological modulation and to infer pharmacological effects on whole‐heart function. We demonstrate that there is a non‐unique mapping from changes in F–pCa curves to changes in left ventricular (LV) function. The effect of changes in F–pCa on LV function depend on the state of the heart and could be different for different pathological conditions. Screening of compounds to impact whole‐heart function by F–pCa should be combined with active tension and calcium transient measurements to predict better how changes in muscle function will impact whole‐heart physiology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefano Longobardi
- Cardiac Electromechanics Research Group, School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Anna Sher
- Pfizer Worldwide Research, Development and Medical, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Steven A Niederer
- Cardiac Electromechanics Research Group, School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, King's College London, London, UK
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Jung A, Gsell MAF, Augustin CM, Plank G. An Integrated Workflow for Building Digital Twins of Cardiac Electromechanics-A Multi-Fidelity Approach for Personalising Active Mechanics. MATHEMATICS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2022; 10:823. [PMID: 35295404 PMCID: PMC7612499 DOI: 10.3390/math10050823] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/04/2023]
Abstract
Personalised computer models of cardiac function, referred to as cardiac digital twins, are envisioned to play an important role in clinical precision therapies of cardiovascular diseases. A major obstacle hampering clinical translation involves the significant computational costs involved in the personalisation of biophysically detailed mechanistic models that require the identification of high-dimensional parameter vectors. An important aspect to identify in electromechanics (EM) models are active mechanics parameters that govern cardiac contraction and relaxation. In this study, we present a novel, fully automated, and efficient approach for personalising biophysically detailed active mechanics models using a two-step multi-fidelity solution. In the first step, active mechanical behaviour in a given 3D EM model is represented by a purely phenomenological, low-fidelity model, which is personalised at the organ scale by calibration to clinical cavity pressure data. Then, in the second step, median traces of nodal cellular active stress, intracellular calcium concentration, and fibre stretch are generated and utilised to personalise the desired high-fidelity model at the cellular scale using a 0D model of cardiac EM. Our novel approach was tested on a cohort of seven human left ventricular (LV) EM models, created from patients treated for aortic coarctation (CoA). Goodness of fit, computational cost, and robustness of the algorithm against uncertainty in the clinical data and variations of initial guesses were evaluated. We demonstrate that our multi-fidelity approach facilitates the personalisation of a biophysically detailed active stress model within only a few (2 to 4) expensive 3D organ-scale simulations-a computational effort compatible with clinical model applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander Jung
- Gottfried Schatz Research Center for Cell Signaling, Metabolism and Aging—Division of Biophysics, Medical University Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria
| | - Matthias A. F. Gsell
- Gottfried Schatz Research Center for Cell Signaling, Metabolism and Aging—Division of Biophysics, Medical University Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria
- NAWI Graz, Institute of Mathematics and Scientific Computing, University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria
| | - Christoph M. Augustin
- Gottfried Schatz Research Center for Cell Signaling, Metabolism and Aging—Division of Biophysics, Medical University Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria
- BioTechMed-Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria
| | - Gernot Plank
- Gottfried Schatz Research Center for Cell Signaling, Metabolism and Aging—Division of Biophysics, Medical University Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria
- BioTechMed-Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria
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