A Farnesyltransferase Inhibitor Attenuates Cardiac Myocyte Hypertrophy and Gene Expression

A. Calderone, N. Abdelaziz, F. Colombo, K. L. Schreiber and H. Rindt. A Farnesyltransferase Inhibitor Attenuates Cardiac Myocyte Hypertrophy and Gene Expression. Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology (2000)32 , 1127–1140. The overexpression of either oncogenic ras or calmodulin in cardiac myocytes can elicit a hypertrophic response, albeit their recruitment by physiologically relevant stimuli remains unresolved. The present study utilized a pharmacological approach to examine the role of ras and calmodulin in norepinephrine- and endothelin-1-stimulated hypertrophy of neonatal rat cardiac myocytes. The pretreatment of cardiac myocytes with the farnesyltransferase inhibitor BMS-191563 (25μ m) increased the level of unfarnesylated ras in the cytosolic fraction, and caused a concomitant 42±2% decrease in immunodetectable farnesylated ras in the particulate fraction. In parallel, BMS-191563 pretreatment inhibited norepinephrine-mediated3H-leucine uptake (80±10% decrease n=6;P<0.01), whereas a significant but less pronounced effect on the endothelin-1 response (46±6% decreasen =6;P<0.05) was observed. The calmodulin inhibitor W7 caused a 50±10% decrease (n=8;P<0.05) of norepinephrine stimulated protein synthesis, whereas the endothelin-1 response was unaffected. Consistent with the recruitment of ras, BMS-191563 pretreatment attenuated norepinephrine and endothelin-1-stimulated extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) activity. However, PD098059-mediated inhibition of MEK-dependent stimulation of ERK did not alter the hypertrophic response of either agonist. At the molecular level, the pretreatment with either BMS-191563 or W7 attenuated the norepinephrine-mediated increase of prepro-ANP and -BNP mRNA. Likewise, BMS-191563 caused a significant decrease of endothelin-1-mediated expression of the natriuretic peptide mRNAs, but to a lesser extent, as compared to norepinephrine. Thus, the present study has shown the treatment of neonatal rat cardiac myocytes with a farnesyltransferase inhibitor can attenuate the hypertrophic phenotype in response to physiologically relevant stimuli, thereby supporting a role of the small GTP-binding protein ras. Moreover, these data further suggest alternative ras-independent signaling pathways are also implicated in the hypertrophic response, albeit, there appears to exist a stimulus-specific heterogeneity in their recruitment.