Cardiac remodeling in Gαq and Gα11 knockout mice

Background: Although both Gαq- and Gα11-protein signaling are believed to be involved in the regulation of cardiac hypertrophy, their detailed contribution to myocardial function remains elusive. Methods and results: We studied remodeling processes in healthy transgenic mice with genetically altered Gαq/Gα11-expression, in particular a global Gα11-knockout and a novel inducible cardiac specific Gαqknockout, as well as a combined double knockout (dKO) mouse line. Echocardiography and telemetric ECG recordings revealed that compared with wild type mice, hearts of dKO mice showed an increased ejection fraction and a decreased heart rate, irrespective of age resulting in a maintained cardiac output. We attributed these findings to the lack of Gα11, which the absence was associated with a decreased afterload. Histological analysis of the extracellular matrix in the heart depicted a diminished presence of collagen in aging hearts of dKO mice compared to wild-type mice. The results of a transcriptome analysis on isolated ventricular cardiac myocytes revealed alterations of the activity of genes involved in the Gαq/Gα11-dependent regulation of the extracellular matrix, such as the matricellular protein Cyr61. Conclusions: From our data we conclude that Gαq/Gα11 signaling pathways play a pivotal role in maintaining gene activity patterns. For the heart we revealed their importance in modulating the properties of the extracellular matrix, a mechanism that might be an important contributor and mechanistic basis for the development of pressure-overload induced cardiac hypertrophy