Calmodulin mutations causing catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia confer opposing functional and biophysical molecular changes

Mads T Søndergaard, Anders B Sorensen, Louise L Skov, Kasper Kjaer-Sorensen, Mikael C Bauer, Mette Nyegaard, Sara Linse, Claus Oxvig, Michael Toft Overgaard

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

47 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Calmodulin (CaM)(1) is the central mediator of intracellular Ca(2+) signalling in cardiomyocytes, where it conveys the intricate Ca(2+) transients to the proteins controlling cardiac contraction. We recently linked two separate mutations in CaM (N53I and N97S) to dominantly inherited catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT), an arrhythmic disorder in which exercise or acute emotion can lead to syncope and sudden cardiac death. Given the ubiquitous presence of CaM in all eukaryote cells, it is particular intriguing that carriers of either mutation show no additional symptoms. Here, we investigated the effects of the CaM CPVT mutations in a zebrafish animal model. Three-days old embryos injected with either CaM mRNA showed no detectable pathologies or developmental abnormalities. However, embryos injected with CPVT CaM mRNA displayed increased heart rate compared to WT CaM mRNA under β-adrenergic stimulation, demonstrating a conserved dominant cardiac specific effect between zebrafish and human carriers of these mutations. Motivated by the highly similar physiological phenotypes, we compared the effects of the N53I and N97S mutations on the biophysical and functional properties of CaM. Surprisingly, the mutations have opposing effects on CaM C-lobe Ca(2+) binding affinity and kinetics, and changes to the CaM N-lobe Ca(2+) binding are minor and specific to the N53I mutation. Furthermore, both mutations induce differential perturbations to structure and stability towards unfolding. Our results suggest different molecular disease mechanisms for the CPVT (N53I and N97S mutations), and strongly support that cardiac contraction is the physiological process most sensitive to CaM integrity. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Original languageEnglish
JournalF E B S Journal
Volume282
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)803-816
Number of pages14
ISSN1742-464X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 14 Jan 2015

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