Deletion of the ion channel Trpm4 increases cardiac inflammatory markers and fibrosis after myocardial infarction in mice

BACKGROUNDThe first cause of mortality worldwide is ischemic heart disease. In myocardial infarction (MI), the ischemic event causes cell death, which triggers a large inflammatory response responsible for removing necrotic material and inducing tissue repair. Endothelial cells, immune cells and fibroblasts play a key role in orchestrating this healing process. TRPM4 is a Ca2+-activated ion channel permeable to monovalent cations and its silencing or knocking out was shown to critically modify cellular functions of these non-myocytic cell types. OBJECTIVEOur aims were to 1) evaluate the role of TRPM4 on mice survival and cardiac function after MI; and 2) investigate the role of TRPM4 in the post-MI acute and chronic inflammatory response. METHODSWe performed ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery or sham intervention on 154 Trpm4 WT or KO male mice and monitored survival for up to 5 weeks as well as cardiac function using echocardiography at 72h and five weeks. We drew blood at different acute time points (6h, 12h, 24h) and performed time-of-flight mass spectrometry to analyze the sera proteomes. Further, we sacrificed sub-groups of mice at 24h and 72h after surgery and performed single-cell RNA sequencing on the non-myocytic cells. Lastly, we assessed fibrosis and angiogenesis at five weeks using type I collagen and CD31 immunostaining respectively. RESULTSWe observed no significant differences in survival or cardiac function post-MI between both genotypes. However, our serum proteomics data showed significantly decreased tissue injury markers such as creatine kinase M and VE-Cadherin in KO compared to WT 12h after MI. On the other hand, inflammation characterized by serum amyloid P component in the serum, as well as higher number of recruited granulocytes, M1 macrophages, M1 monocytes, Mac-6 macrophages, and expression of pro-inflammatory genes such as Il1b, Lyz2 and S100a8/a9 was significantly higher in endothelial cells, macrophages and fibroblasts of KO than of WT. This correlated with increased cardiac fibrosis and angiogenesis 5 weeks after MI in KO. CONCLUSIONOur data suggest that knocking out Trpm4 drastically increases acute inflammation post-MI, is associated with increased chronic fibrosis and does not improve survival at 5 weeks post-MI. Thus, targeting TRPM4 in the context of MI should be pondered carefully and approaches that nuance the timing of the inhibition or cellular target may be required.