RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Repression of Pdzrn3 is required for heart maturation and protects against heart failure JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2020.07.29.226597 DO 10.1101/2020.07.29.226597 A1 Mathieu Pernot A1 Béatrice Jaspard-vinassa A1 Alice Abelanet A1 Sebastien Rubin A1 Isabelle Forfar A1 Sylvie Jeanningros A1 Laura Cetran A1 Murielle Han-Yee Yu A1 Elise Balse A1 Stéphane Hatem A1 Pascale Dufourcq A1 Thierry Couffinhal A1 Cécile Duplàa YR 2020 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/07/30/2020.07.29.226597.abstract AB Heart failure is the final common stage of most cardiopathies. Cardiomyocytes connect with others via their extremities by intercalated disk protein complexes. This planar and directional organization of myocytes is crucial for mechanical coupling and anisotropic conduction of the electric signal in the heart. One of the hallmarks of heart failure is alterations in the contact sites between cardiomyocytes. Yet no factor on its own is known to coordinate cardiomyocyte polarized organization. We report enhanced levels of an ubiquitine ligase Pdzrn3 in diseased hypertrophic human and mouse myocardium, which correlates with a loss of cardiomyocyte polarized elongation. We provide evidence that Pdzrn3 has a causative role in heart failure. We found that cardiac Pdzrn3 deficiency protected against heart failure while over expression of Pdzrn3 in mouse cardiomyocytes during the first weeks of life, impaired postnatal cardiomyocyte maturation leading to premature death. Our results reveal a novel signaling pathway that controls a genetic program essential for heart maturation and maintenance of overall geometry, as well as the contractile function of cardiomyocytes, and implicates PDZRN3 as a potential therapeutic target for the prevention of human heart failure.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.