Furtado, M. B., Wilmanns, J. C., Chandran, A., Perera, J., Hon, O., Biben, C., … Costa, M. W. (2017). Point mutations in murine Nkx2-5 phenocopy human congenital heart disease and induce pathogenic Wnt signaling. JCI Insight, 2(6). doi:10.1172/jci.insight.88271
Abstract:
Mutations in the Nkx2-5 gene are a main cause of congenital heart disease. Several studies have addressed the phenotypic consequences of disrupting the Nkx2-5 gene locus, although animal models to date failed to recapitulate the full spectrum of the human disease. Here, we describe a new Nkx2-5 point mutation murine model, akin to its human counterpart disease–generating mutation. Our model fully reproduces the morphological and physiological clinical presentations of the disease and reveals an understudied aspect of Nkx2-5–driven pathology, a primary right ventricular dysfunction. We further describe the molecular consequences of disrupting the transcriptional network regulated by Nkx2-5 in the heart and show that Nkx2-5–dependent perturbation of the Wnt signaling pathway promotes heart dysfunction through alteration of cardiomyocyte metabolism. Our data provide mechanistic insights on how Nkx2-5 regulates heart function and metabolism, a link in the study of congenital heart disease, and confirms that our models are the first murine genetic models to our knowledge to present all spectra of clinically relevant adult congenital heart disease phenotypes generated by NKX2-5 mutations in patients.
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Funding Info:
We acknowledge the use of Monash University MicroImaging, Monash Biomedical Imaging, and Monash Gene Targeting Facilities. We would also like to thanks Peter Williams for help with mitochondrial data analysis. The Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute is supported by grants from the State Government of Victoria and the Australian Government. This work was also funded by NHMRC-Australia Fellowship to NAR and NHMRC Project grant 1069710 to MWC and NAR, NHMRC/NHF 1049980 CDF to MR, and ARC Stem Cells Australia to NAR. NHMRC Project grants 025008 and 1074386 and The Estate of the Late RT Hall to DF. HTN is supported by the Richard Pratt Fellowship in Prostate Cancer. This research was done in a previous organization in Australia before moving to Singapore. No funding sponsors were used/indicated.