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| Author(s): |
Priscila Camillo Teixeira
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Medicina (FM/SBD) |
| Defense date: | 2010-01-22 |
| Examining board members: |
Edecio Cunha Neto;
Antônio Carlos Campos de Carvalho;
Anna Carla Renata Krepel Goldberg;
Alicia Juliana Kowaltowski;
Francisco Rafael Martins Laurindo
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| Advisor: | Edecio Cunha Neto |
| Abstract | |
The pathogenesis of Chagas disease cardiomyopathy (CCC) is still controversial. CCC is characterized by an intense cardiac inflammatory infiltrate; infiltrating T lymphocytes produce inflammatory cytokines such as IFN-gamma and TNF-alpha. Patients afflicted by CCC display a worse prognosis when compared to patients afflicted by non-inflammatory cardiomyopathies such as idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDC) and ischemic cardiomyopathy (IC), suggesting that inflammatory mechanisms play a role in the pathogenesis and progression of the disease. In addition, previous evidence from our group suggested the presence of energy metabolism changes in CCC. In the present work, we compared the protein expression profile of the myocardium of patients with CCC, IDC, IC, and noncardiomyopathic subjects, with focus on energetic metabolism-related proteins. We used bidimensional electrophoresis to analyze the protein expression profile in the myocardium of patients afflicted by CCC, and proteins were identified by mass spectrometry. The majority of spots were identified as structural proteins or metabolism proteins, especially of energy metabolism. We were also able to identify apoptosis-, immune system- and stress response-related proteins. Using fluorescent labeling, we analyzed the differential expression profile in the myocardium of CCC, IDC and IC patients, from a total of 683 spots and 230 distinct proteins identified. We observed that the protein expression profile of CCC patients is the most distinct when compared to non-cardiomyopathic subjects. On the other hand, the protein expression profile of IC patients is similar, at some extent, to the expression profile of non-cardiomyopathic patients. We also found altered expression of proteins related to apoptosis (e.g. cathepsin D and Akt2), oxidative stress (e.g. catalase), endoplasmic reticulum stress (e.g. disulfilte isomerase protein), cardiac remodeling (e.g. gelsolin) among CCC, IDC and IC patients when compared to noncardiomyopathic patients. Most of these proteins, if not all, play fundamental roles in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases. We also showed that the myocardium of patients afflicted by CCC display altered expression of several mitochondrial proteins associated to energy metabolism in the glycolysis, Krebs cycle, betaoxidation, oxidative phosphorylation, and creatine kinase complex when compared to non-cardiomyopathic subjects. Although some of these changes were shared with IDC samples, and, to a lesser extent, with CI samples, Western blot analysis demonstrated that CCC samples showed the most extreme reduction in protein expression of the creatine kinase system, including its enzymatic activity. We also observed with Western blot analysis that proteins from the ATP synthase complex (subunits alpha and beta) showed decreased expression in myocardium of CCC patients when compared to non-cardiomyopathic subjects and when compared to IC patients. We also observed an increase in the protein expression of stress proteins, including those involved in the oxidative stress response, those associated to apoptosis, and immune system proteins in CCC myocardium, along with increased expression of the immunoproteasome subunit and proteins associated to protein degradation. Taken together, our results suggest that diminished expression of proteins fundamental for ATP generation, increased expression of apoptosisassociated proteins and immune system proteins in the myocardium of CCC patients when compared to IC and IDC patients may be associated to CCC progression. The analysis of the protein expression profile has identified groups of proteins whose expression pattern is able to discriminate the myocardium samples by etiology. This may help to find novel peripheral biomarkers of CCC and other cardiomyopathies, as well as in the understanding of mechanisms of disease progression and structural/molecular alterations of the inflamed myocardium. (AU) | |