Abstract 107: Acetyl-coa Carboxylase 2 Prevents Cardiomyocyte Hypertrophy by Reducing Glucose Reliance

Abstract

In cardiac hypertrophy, the adult heart switches from mainly using fatty acids to increased reliance on glucose to maintain its energetic demands. Reducing fatty acid overload and further increasing glucose reliance has been suggested to be beneficial in the diseased state. Recently, however, it has been shown that increasing fatty acid oxidation (FAO) by cardiac-specific deletion of Acetyl-CoA Carboxylase 2 (ACC2) maintains cardiac energetics and prevents cardiac dysfunction as well as cardiomyocyte hypertrophy during chronic pressure overload. However, it remained unclear, how increased FAO specifically prevented cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. Thus, the goal of this study was to determine the impact of ACC2 deletion on cardiomyocyte hypertrophy in vitro . Adenoviral-mediated knock-down (KD) of ACC2 in adult rat ventricular cardiomyocytes (CMs) resulted in a 70% downregulation of ACC2 mRNA. In standard CM medium (medium M199, 5.5mM glucose) ACC2 KD resulted in a similar increase in CM growth after phenylephrine (PE) treatment as control CMs (+39±10% in control vs. 41±16% in ACC2 KD CMs). Supplementation of 0.4 mM mixed long-chain fatty acids (FA) and 0.1 mU/ml insulin had no effect on cardiomyocyte morphology or hypertrophic response after PE treatment (+42±6%). However, ACC2 KD effectively prevented CM hypertrophy after PE stimulation in the presence of FA/insulin (+9±6%). Whereas PE stimulation in control CMs increased glucose uptake (+28±8%) and reduced fatty acid uptake (-25±6%), both were normalized after ACC2 KD. Inhibiting FAO by etomoxir or increasing glucose utilization by dichloroacetate abolished the beneficial effects of ACC2 KD after PE stimulation. When cultured in glucose-free medium supplemented with FA, ACC2 KD was incapable of preventing cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. Together, these data indicate that increased FAO after ACC2 deletion prevents cardiomyocyte hypertrophy by reducing glucose reliance, suggesting that rather increasing than reducing FAO is beneficial in cardiac hypertrophy.