Nuclear hypertrophy reflects increased biosynthetic activities in myocytes of human hypertrophic hearts

Background The nucleus of the myocytes in human hypertrophic hearts is characterized by its bizarre shape and widespread clumping of chromatin. The functional significance has not been determined. Methods and Results Left ventricular (LV) endomyocardial biopsies obtained from patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM, n = 23), postmyocarditis (n = 13), hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM, n = 21), apical hypertrophic cardiornyopathy (APH, n = 11) and hypertensive heart disease (HHD, n = 11), and from nonhypertrophic hearts (controls, n = 14) were examined. Myocyte size and LV mass index were similar among the hypertrophic hearts, but the nuclear hypertrophy score (grade 0-3) was highest in hearts with systolic failure (DCM and postmyocarditis) and higher in those without it (HCM, APH, and HHD), compared with controls. So were biosynthetic activities such as DNA repair/synthesis, immunohistochemically assessed by proliferating cell nuclear antigen, transcription activity by spliceosome component of 35kDa, and translation efficiency by 70kDa S6 protein kinase. There were significant correlations between nuclear hypertrophy and each biosynthetic activity. Additionally, most of the proliferating cell nuclear antigen-positive nuclei co-expressed oxidative DNA damage markers. Conclusion A link is suggested between structural alteration and molecular biological events in the nuclei of myocytes from human hypertrophic hearts; the nuclear hypertrophy reflects increased biosynthetic activities of DNA repair/synthesis, transcription, and translation efficiency.