A Systems Genetics Approach Identifies As a Link Between Cardiomyocyte Glucose Utilization and Hypertrophic Response

Cardiac failure has been widely associated with an increase in glucose utilization. The aim of our study was to identify factors that mechanistically bridge this link between hyperglycemia and heart failure. Here, we screened the Hybrid Mouse Diversity Panel (HMDP) for substrate-specific cardiomyocyte candidates based on heart transcriptional profile and circulating nutrients. Next, we utilized an in vitro model of rat cardiomyocytes to demonstrate that the gene expression changes were in direct response to substrate abundance. After overlaying candidates of interest with a separate HMDP study evaluating isoproterenol-induced heart failure, we chose to focus on the gene as a cardiomyocyte glucose utilization-specific factor. gene knockdown in rat cardiomyocytes reduced expression and protein abundance of key glycolytic enzymes. This resulted in reduction of both glucose uptake and glycogen content in cardiomyocytes stimulated with isoproterenol. Furthermore, this reduction effectively blunted the capacity of glucose and isoprotereonol to synergistically induce hypertrophic gene expression and cell size expansion. We conclude that serves as regulator of cardiomyocyte glycolytic activity and can consequently regulate hypertrophic response in the context of elevated glucose content. Here, we apply a novel method for screening transcripts based on a substrate-specific expression pattern to identify as an induced cardiomyocyte glucose utilization factor. We further show that reducing expression of the gene could effectively blunt hypertrophic response in the context of elevated glucose content.