Abstract 246: Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Reveal Mitophagy as an Essential Process Against Diabetic Cardiomyopathy

Abstract

Diabetic cardiomyopathy is a common consequence of diabetes and associated with mitochondrial pathology. Using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) as an in vitro model of diabetes, we sought to understand the role of mitophagy, a process that selectively degrades mitochondria through the autophagy-lysosome pathway as a crucial quality control pathway against diabetic cardiomyopathy. We first showed that iPSC-CMs exposed to a diabetic milieu demonstrated increased hypertrophy, impaired calcium signaling, and higher oxidative stress. Flow cytometry analysis of iPSC-CMs subjected to diabetic conditions revealed two distinct population of cells (normal and hypertrophied), suggesting a heterogeneous response to hyperglycemia. In these cells, hypertrophied iPSC-CMs were found to have reduced mitophagy compared to normal cells when exposed to hyperglycemia. In addition, we showed that mitochondrial fragmentation was also decreased in the hypertrophied iPSC-CMs compared to normal cells upon exposure to hyperglycemia, demonstrating a link between mitochondrial fragmentation and mitophagy. Surprisingly, pretreatment of iPSC-CMs with a non-selective antioxidant, N-(2-mercaptopropionyl)-glycine, not only failed to limit the deleterious effects of hyperglycemia, but actually led to increased hypertrophy and cell death. We found that mitophagy was significantly reduced in iPSC-CMs following antioxidant treatment, suggesting the need of mild oxidative stress as a trigger for mitophagy. Future studies are warranted to further investigate the association between oxidative stress, mitochondrial fragmentation, and mitochondrial fission as targets against diabetic cardiomyopathy.