Abstract

Cardiac hypertrophy is an adaptive response to a variety of mechanical and hormonal stimuli, and represents an early event in the clinical course leading to heart failure. By gene inactivation, we demonstrate here a crucial role of melusin, a muscle-specific protein that interacts with the integrin ₁ cytoplasmic domain, in the hypertrophic response to mechanical overload. Melusin-null mice showed normal cardiac structure and function in physiological conditions, but when subjected to pressure overload—a condition that induces a hypertrophic response in wild-type controls—they developed an abnormal cardiac remodeling that evolved into dilated cardiomyopathy and contractile dysfunction. In contrast, the hypertrophic response was identical in wild-type and melusin-null mice after chronic administration of angiotensin II or phenylephrine at doses that do not increase blood pressure—that is, in the absence of cardiac biomechanical stress. Analysis of intracellular signaling events induced by pressure overload indicated that phosphorylation of glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK-3) was specifically blunted in melusin-null hearts. Thus, melusin prevents cardiac dilation during chronic pressure overload by specifically sensing mechanical stress.