Molecular basis of cardiac hypertrophy

Cardiac hypertrophy is an adaptive process to an increased hemodynamic overload. When cardiomyocytes cultured on silicone dishes were stretched, second messengers such as protein kinase C (PKC), Raf-l kinase, and mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases were activated, which were followed by increased protein synthesis. Moreover, pretreatment with an angiotensin II (AngII) type 1 receptor antagonist diminished an increase in protein synthesis, MAP kinase activity, and c-fos gene expression induced by the stretching of cardiomyocytes. These suggest the linkage of the cardiac renin-angiotensin system to the formation of pressure-overload hypertrophy. Indeed, in the stretch-conditioned medium the levels of AngII concentration were increased. Also, mechanical stretch enhanced endothelin (ET)-1 release from the cardiomyocytes and activated the Na+/H+ exchanger independently of these vasoactive peptides. In the second part, we examined AngII-induced signaling pathways both in cardiac myocytes and in cardiac fibroblasts. AngII-evoked signal transduction pathways differed between cell types. In cardiac fibroblasts AngII activated MAP kinases through a pathway including the G beta gamma subunit of Gi protein, Src, Shc, Grb2, and Pas, while Gq and PKC activation was necessary in cardiac myocytes. We further explored norepinephrine (NE)induced signaling pathways in cardiac myocytes. NE activated Raf-l kinase and MAP kinases and increased amino acid uptake in cardiomyocytes of neonatal rats. beta-adrenoceptor (AR) stimulation as well as alpha 1-AR stimulation was involved in NE-induced MAP kinase activation. It is noteworthy that unlike in other cell types not only PKC activation but also protein kinase A (PKA) activation increased the activities of Raf-l kinase and MAP kinases in cardiac myocytes and induced cell growth. Finally, we observed that beta-AR-induced activation of MAP kinases is dependent on both Gs/cAMP/PKA and Gi/Src/Ras signaling pathways and that phosphorylation of beta-AR is critical to the cross talk between these signaling pathways.