Nuclear pore complexes: A new player in the ageing heart?
HOPE Scholar, Mathew Shuen, presented this poster at Queenstown Research Week September 2024.
Background: Nuclear pore complexes are large intracellular gateways that regulate macromolecule transport between the nucleus and cytoplasm. Nuclear pore complexes are integral to cellular homeostasis and have been implicated in age-related cell death in motoneurons, which similarly to cardiomyocytes lack appreciable cell division throughout life. Exploration of Nuclear pore complexes in the context of physiological heart ageing has been limited.
Aim: To determine whether age-related changes in the levels of long-lived nuclear envelope proteins is a feature of ageing human cardiomyocytes.
Methods: Right atrial appendage tissue from the HeartOtago tissue bank were selected from participants across an age-range of approx. 40 years (45-87yo) (n=40).
Results: Data indicates no significant change in immunodetectable nuclear envelope protein levels with advancing age in human cardiomyocytes.
Conclusion: No significant change in immunodetectable Nup93, Nup98, or Lamin A/C as a function of patient age. Current data suggests that the overall immunodetectable level nuclear envelope components in human cardiomyocytes are not lost at appreciable rates after 40 years of age. These findings could indicate that ageing human cardiomyocytes have a mechanism for piecemeal repair of nuclear envelope components, or that age-related damage is not conveyed by a decline in protein level, but of functional decline or modification.
A pdf of this poster is available to download.
Mathew Shuen is a PhD Candidate from University of Otago. Assoc Prof Phil Sheard is supervising Mathew.
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