Gq/11-Mediated Signaling and Hypertrophy in Mice with Cardiac- Specific Transgenic Expression of Regulator of G-Protein Signaling

Cardiac hypertrophy is a well-established risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Activation of Gq/11-mediated signaling is required for pressure overload-induced cardiomyocyte (CM) hypertrophy to develop. We previously showed that among Regulators of G protein Signaling, RGS2 selectively inhibits Gq/11 signaling and its hypertrophic effects in isolated CM. In this study, we generated transgenic mice with CM-specific, conditional RGS2 expression (dTG) to investigate whether RGS2 overexpression can be used to attenuate Gq/11-mediated signaling and hypertrophy in vivo. Transverse aortic constriction (TAC) induced a comparable rise in ventricular mass and ANF expression and corresponding hemodynamic changes in dTG compared to wild types (WT), regardless of the TAC duration (1-8 wks) and timing of RGS2 expression (from birth or adulthood). Inhibition of endothelin-1-induced Gq/11-mediated phospholipase C b activity in ventricles and atrial appendages indicated functionality of transgenic RGS2. However, the inhibitory effect of transgenic RGS2 on Gq/11mediated PLCb activation differed between ventricles and atria: (i) in sham-operated dTG mice the magnitude of the inhibitory effect was less pronounced in ventricles than in atria, and (ii) after TAC, negative regulation of Gq/11 signaling was absent in ventricles but fully preserved in atria. Neither difference could be explained by differences in expression levels, including marked RGS2 downregulation after TAC in left ventricle and atrium. Counter-regulatory changes in other Gq/11regulating RGS proteins (RGS4, RGS5, RGS6) and random insertion were also excluded as potential causes. Taken together, despite ample evidence for a role of RGS2 in negatively regulating Gq/11 signaling and hypertrophy in CM, CM-specific RGS2 overexpression in transgenic mice in vivo did not lead to attenuate ventricular Gq/11-mediated signaling and hypertrophy in response to pressure overload. Furthermore, our study suggests chamber-specific differences in the regulation of RGS2 functionality and potential future utility of the new transgenic model in mitigating Gq/11 signaling in the atria in vivo. Citation: Park-Windhol C, Zhang P, Zhu M, Su J, Chaves L Jr, et al. (2012) Gq/11-Mediated Signaling and Hypertrophy in Mice with Cardiac-Specific Transgenic Expression of Regulator of G-Protein Signaling 2. PLoS ONE 7(7): e40048. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0040048 Editor: Loren E. Wold, Ohio State University, United States of America Received May 4, 2012; Accepted May 31, 2012; Published July 3, 2012 Copyright: 2012 Park-Windhol et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was supported by grants from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (HL-80127 to UM) and the American Heart Association (AHA) (0740098N to UM), an AHA predoctoral fellowship award [09PRE2170075 to CP] and an undergraduate teaching and research assistant award from Brown University (to LR). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: [email protected]