Abstract 518: Pharmacological Inhibition of Human Antigen R (HuR) Blunts fibroblast Activation and Cardiac Fibrosis

Myocardial fibrosis is associated with many cardiac diseases and often leads to a worsened prognosis. In a healthy heart, cardiac fibroblasts are responsible for maintaining the extracellular matrix (ECM). In response to stress or injury, however, the fibroblasts activate to myofibroblasts and begin proliferating, migrating, and depositing excess ECM. This leads to decreased compliance and contractility of the myocardium, furthering the progression to heart failure. Dampening the chronic activation of fibroblasts, therefore, is an attractive target for future cardiac therapeutics. Human Antigen R (HuR) is an RNA binding protein known to stabilize mRNA through binding to AU rich regions in the 3’UTR. Our lab has previously utilized a myocyte-specific knockout of HuR to show that HuR plays an important role in cardiac fibrosis through mediating TGFβ gene expression in the myocytes. Additionally, pharmacological inhibition of HuR markedly reduced interstitial cardiac fibrosis in an 11-week transverse aortic constriction (TAC) mouse model of heart failure, quantifying the fibrosis with Masson’s Trichrome Stains, western blots, and qPCR of profibrotic markers. The goal of this work is to identify the functional role of HuR in mediating pro-fibrotic gene expression and ECM remodeling activity in cardiac fibroblasts. Our results demonstrate that HuR inhibition blunts the activation and wound healing activity of primary adult cardiac fibroblasts. Specifically, utilizing an in vitro scratch/wound healing assay we show that HuR inhibition significantly prolongs wound closure time and blunts the expression of profibrotic genes (e.g. collagen1a1, periostin, TGFb, fibronectin). Ongoing studies will determine the effect of HuR inhibition in a two-week isoproterenol pump (30mg/kg/day) model. Quantification of fibrosis and upstream signaling of fibroblast activation, such as TGFβ-dependent phosphorylation of SMAD2/3, will be assessed to determine the role of HuR in the initiation of fibrotic signaling.