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American Heart Association

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Final ID: Tu082

Novel Structural and Biochemical Effects of Nexilin Associated Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Abstract Body: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is primarily a genetic disease that results in abnormal cardiac muscle phenotypes characterized by ventricular hypertrophy, fibrosis, and contractile dysfunction. Both sarcomere structural and signaling genes are associated with HCM. Among various genes, one of the implicated genes for HCM is Nexilin (NEXN). Nexilin is an F-actin binding protein widely expressed in muscle cells and localized at sarcomere and T-tubules. It is known to have a surprising role in insulin signaling. The role of Nexilin mutations is poorly studied. We hypothesized that Nexilin missense variants in genetically engineered human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) perturb essential cardiac metabolic signaling pathways leading to HCM. In our Indian HCM cohort, we identified seven Nexilin mutations through exome sequencing and categorized them as pathogenic per ACMG/AMP classification. A representative novel mutant in Nexilin p.Q131T was introduced in hPSC with the CRISPR-Cas9 knock-in method and was differentiated into cardiomyocytes, recapitulating patient-specific heterozygous mutation. Our data shows that Nexilin p.Q131T causes an increase in cell size and activation of fetal gene transcriptional programs in hPSC-derived cardiomyocytes. Global transcriptomics was performed to understand transcriptional changes and investigate further. We observe the significant activation of insulin-related signaling pathways, including AKT/MTOR and MAPK, confirmed by immunoblotting. Akt-mTOR and MAPK cascades are well-known to be regulated by IRS-1 signaling. Our studies show hyperactivation of these cascades, suggesting IRS-1 involvement in the pathogenesis. Nexilin and IRS-1 interaction were probed and found to be perturbed, hence causing higher activation of IRS-1 and its downstream targets. In addition, Nexilin wild type and mutant protein structure-functional analysis were performed with purified proteins. Using cryo-EM structural analysis, we identified unique F-actin binding sites for Nexilin for the first time, and the mutant p.Q131T showed decreased binding affinity to F-actin. We report Nexilin's high-resolution cryo-EM structure and a novel metabolic signaling mechanism where mutations in Nexilin cause dysregulation of IRS-1 signaling in the gene-edited cardiomyocytes, leading to HCM pathogenesis.
  • Chittora, Harshil  ( NCBS , Bangalore , India )
  • Author Disclosures:
    Harshil Chittora: DO NOT have relevant financial relationships
Meeting Info:

Basic Cardiovascular Sciences

2024

Chicago, Illinois

Session Info:

Poster Session and Reception 2

Tuesday, 07/23/2024 , 04:30PM - 07:00PM

Poster Session and Reception

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