New molecular mechanisms for cardiovascular disease: cardiac hypertrophy and cell-volume regulation

Cardiac hypertrophy is an increase in the muscle volume of the ventricle due to the enlargement of cardiac cells. Physiological cardiac hypertrophy is the normal response to healthy exercise, and pathological hypertrophy is the response to increased stress such as hypertension. Intracellular and extracellular aniosmotic conditions also change cell volume. Since persistent cell swelling or cell shrinkage during aniosmotic conditions results in cell death, the ability to regulate cell volume is important for the maintenance of cellular homeostasis. Cell swelling activates a regulatory volume decrease (RVD) response in which solute leakage pathways are stimulated and solute with water exits cells, reducing the cell volume towards the original value. In cardiac cells, one of the essential factors for cell-volume regulation is the volume-regulated anion channel (VRAC). However, the relationship between cardiac hypertrophy and cell-volume regulation is not clear. In this review, we introduce our recent findings showing that the impairment of VRAC current is exhibited in ventricular cells from mice with cardiac hypertrophy induced by transverse aortic constriction. Similar results were shown in caveolin-3-deficient mice, which develop cardiac hypertrophy without pressure overload. These results suggest that VRAC will be a new target for protection from the development of cardiac hypertrophy.