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Research Paper|Volume 13, Issue 7|pp 9704—9718

Uhrf1 regulates H3K9me2 modification of mTOR to inhibit the effect of autophagy in myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury

Han-Geng Li1, Wen-Hua Tian2, Cun-Lan Qin1, Rong-Rong Ye1, Dong-Hua Liu1, Hui-Wen Liu1
  • 1Department of Histology and Embryology, College of Basic Medicine, Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150081, China
  • 2Emergency Department, The Fourth Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150081, China
Received: July 11, 2020Accepted: November 15, 2020Published: March 19, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202722

Copyright: © 2021 Li et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

The regulation of mTOR and the dimethylation of histone H3 on lysine 9 (H3K9me2) H3K9me2 by Uhrf1 and the mechanism of autophagy regulation in myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury (MIRI) were studied in vivo and in vitro.

An in vitro I/R injury model was established using the primary mouse cardiomyocytes treated with H2O2. Subsequent analysis by qRT-PCR, western blot, and immunofluorescence indicated that overexpression of Uhrf1 significantly inhibited apoptosis of the H2O2-treated cardiomyocytes, reduced expression of apoptosis factors caspase-3 and Bax, and increased expression of apoptosis inhibitory factor Bcl-2. Furthermore, Uhrf1 was found to increase cardiomyocyte proliferation and promote the expression of mTOR, while the four expression peaks of H3K9me2 on the mTOR gene were inhibited by overexpression of Uhrf1. The expression of autophagy factors LC3, Beclin-1, and p-mTOR in Uhrf1-overexpressed cardiomyocytes was dramatically increased, and P62 expression was dramatically decreased. When an H3K9me2 inhibitor was added to the Uhrf1-knockdown cardiomyocytes, the expression of mTOR was increased, the expression of LC3, Beclin-1, and p-mTOR was decreased, and P62 expression was significantly increased.

In the present study, Uhrf1 exhibits a protective function in MIRI, reducing the apoptosis of cardiomyocytes while increasing their proliferation and viability.