Li, F., Buck, D., De Winter, J., Kolb, J., Meng, H., Birch, C., Slater, R., Escobar, Y. N., Smith, J. E., Yang, L., Konhilas, J., Lawlor, M. W., Ottenheijm, C., & Granzier, H. L. (2015). Nebulin deficiency in adult muscle causes sarcomere defects and muscle-type-dependent changes in trophicity: novel insights in nemaline myopathy. Human molecular genetics, 24(18), 5219-33.
Nebulin is a giant filamentous protein that is coextensive with the actin filaments of the skeletal muscle sarcomere. Nebulin mutations are the main cause of nemaline myopathy (NEM), with typical adult patients having low expression of nebulin, yet the roles of nebulin in adult muscle remain poorly understood. To establish nebulin's functional roles in adult muscle, we studied a novel conditional nebulin KO (Neb cKO) mouse model in which nebulin deletion was driven by the muscle creatine kinase (MCK) promotor. Neb cKO mice are born with high nebulin levels in their skeletal muscles, but within weeks after birth nebulin expression rapidly falls to barely detectable levels Surprisingly, a large fraction of the mice survive to adulthood with low nebulin levels (5% of control), contain nemaline rods and undergo fiber-type switching toward oxidative types. Nebulin deficiency causes a large deficit in specific force, and mechanistic studies provide evidence that a reduced fraction of force-generating cross-bridges and shortened thin filaments contribute to the force deficit. Muscles rich in glycolytic fibers upregulate proteolysis pathways (MuRF-1, Fbxo30/MUSA1, Gadd45a) and undergo hypotrophy with smaller cross-sectional areas (CSAs), worsening their force deficit. Muscles rich in oxidative fibers do not have smaller weights and can even have hypertrophy, offsetting their specific-force deficit. These studies reveal nebulin as critically important for force development and trophicity in adult muscle. The Neb cKO phenocopies important aspects of NEM (muscle weakness, oxidative fiber-type predominance, variable trophicity effects, nemaline rods) and will be highly useful to test therapeutic approaches to ameliorate muscle weakness.
Slater, R. E., Strom, J. G., & Granzier, H. (2017). Effect of exercise on passive myocardial stiffness in mice with diastolic dysfunction. Journal of molecular and cellular cardiology, 108, 24-33.
Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is a complex syndrome, characterized by increased diastolic stiffness and a preserved ejection fraction, with no effective treatment options. Here we studied the therapeutic potential of exercise for improving diastolic function in a mouse model with HFpEF-like symptoms, the TtnΔIAjxn mouse model. TtnΔIAjxn mice have increased diastolic stiffness and reduced exercise tolerance, mimicking aspects of HFpEF observed in patients. We investigated the effect of free-wheel running exercise on diastolic function. Mechanical studies on cardiac muscle strips from the LV free wall revealed that both TtnΔIAjxn and wildtype (WT) exercised mice had a reduction in passive stiffness, relative to sedentary controls. In both genotypes, this reduction is due to an increase in the compliance of titin whereas ECM-based stiffness was unaffected. Phosphorylation of titin's PEVK and N2B spring elements were assayed with phospho-site specific antibodies. Exercised mice had decreased PEVK phosphorylation and increased N2B phosphorylation both of which are predicted to contribute to the increased compliance of titin. Since exercise lowers the heart rate we examined whether reduction in heart rate per se can improve passive stiffness by administering the heart-rate-lowering drug ivabradine. Ivabradine lowered heart rate in our study but it did not affect passive tension, in neither WT nor TtnΔIAjxn mice. We conclude that exercise is beneficial for decreasing passive stiffness and that it involves beneficial alterations in titin phosphorylation.
Granzier, H. L. (2015). Reply to Tskhovrebova et al.: Titin's IA junction does not control thick filament length. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(11), E1173.
Granzier, H., Anderson, B. R., Bogomolovas, J., Labeit, S., & Granzier, H. L. (2010). The effects of PKCalpha phosphorylation on the extensibility of titin's PEVK element. Journal of structural biology, 170(2).
Post-translational modifications, along with isoform splicing, of titin determine the passive tension development of stretched sarcomeres. It was recently shown that PKCalpha phosphorylates two highly-conserved residues (S26 and S170) of the PEVK region in cardiac titin, resulting in passive tension increase. To determine how each phosphorylated residue affects myocardial stiffness, we generated three recombinant mutant PEVK fragments (S26A, S170A and S170A/S26A), each flanked by Ig domains. Single-molecule force spectroscopy shows that PKCalpha decreases the PEVK persistence length (from 0.99 to 0.68 nm); the majority of this decrease is attributable to phosphorylation of S26. Before PKCalpha, all three mutant PEVK fragments showed at least 40% decrease in persistence length compared to wildtype. Furthermore, Ig domain unfolding force measurements indicate that PEVK's flanking Ig domains are relatively unstable compared to other titin Ig domains. We conclude that phosphorylation of S26 is the primary mechanism through which PKCalpha modulates cardiac stiffness.
Winter, J. M., Joureau, B., Lee, E. J., Kiss, B., Yuen, M., Gupta, V. A., Pappas, C. T., Gregorio, C. C., Stienen, G. J., Edvardson, S., Wallgren-Pettersson, C., Lehtokari, V. L., Pelin, K., Malfatti, E., Romero, N. B., Engelen, B. G., Voermans, N. C., Donkervoort, S., Bönnemann, C. G., , Clarke, N. F., et al. (2016). Mutation-specific effects on thin filament length in thin filament myopathy. Annals of neurology, 79(6), 959-69.
Thin filament myopathies are among the most common nondystrophic congenital muscular disorders, and are caused by mutations in genes encoding proteins that are associated with the skeletal muscle thin filament. Mechanisms underlying muscle weakness are poorly understood, but might involve the length of the thin filament, an important determinant of force generation.