A common MLP (muscle LIM protein) variant is associated with cardiomyopathy

We previously discovered the human 10T-->C (Trp4Arg) missense mutation in exon 2 of the muscle LIM protein (MLP, CSRP3) gene.

We sought to study the effects of this single-nucleotide polymorphism in the in vivo situation.

We now report the generation and detailed analysis of the corresponding Mlp(W4R/+) and Mlp(W4R/W4R) knock-in animals, which develop an age- and gene dosage-dependent hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and heart failure phenotype, characterized by almost complete loss of contractile reserve under catecholamine induced stress. In addition, evidence for skeletal muscle pathology, which might have implications for human mutation carriers, was observed. Importantly, we found significantly reduced MLP mRNA and MLP protein expression levels in hearts of heterozygous and homozygous W4R-MLP knock-in animals. We also detected a weaker in vitro interaction of telethonin with W4R-MLP than with wild-type MLP. These alterations may contribute to an increased nuclear localization of W4R-MLP, which was observed by immunohistochemistry.

Given the well-known high frequency of this mutation in Caucasians of up to 1%, our data suggest that (W4R-MLP) might contribute significantly to human cardiovascular disease.