Kensuke Tsushima, Heiko Bugger, Adam R Wende, Jamie Soto, Gregory A Jenson, Austin R Tor, Rose McGlauflin, Helena C Kenny, Yuan Zhang, Rhonda Souvenir, Xiao X Hu, Crystal L Sloan, Renata O Pereira, Vitor A Lira, Kenneth W Spitzer, Terry L Sharp, Kooresh I Shoghi, Genevieve C Sparagna, Eva A Rog-Zielinska, Peter Kohl, Oleh Khalimonchuk, Jean E Schaffer, E Dale Abel
RATIONALE: Cardiac lipotoxicity, characterized by increased uptake, oxidation, and accumulation of lipid intermediates, contributes to cardiac dysfunction in obesity and diabetes mellitus. However, mechanisms linking lipid overload and mitochondrial dysfunction are incompletely understood. OBJECTIVE: To elucidate the mechanisms for mitochondrial adaptations to lipid overload in postnatal hearts in vivo. METHODS AND RESULTS: Using a transgenic mouse model of cardiac lipotoxicity overexpressing ACSL1 (long-chain acyl-CoA synthetase 1) in cardiomyocytes, we show that modestly increased myocardial fatty acid uptake leads to mitochondrial structural remodeling with significant reduction in minimum diameter...
January 5, 2018: Circulation Research