Abstract
Lysosome-associated membrane protein 3 (LAMP3) was first identified as a cell surface marker of mature dendritic cells and specifically expressed in lung tissues. Recently studies demonstrated that LAMP3 plays a critical role in several cancers, and regulated by hypoxia. However, whether LAMP3 expressed in the heart and cardiomyocytes and changed its expression level in the hearts with cardiac remodelling was largely unknown. In this study, we first cultured H9C2 (a clonal muscle cell line from rat heart) and stimulated with 1 μM angiotensin II (Ang II), or 100 μM isoproterenol (ISO), or 100 μM phenylephrine (PE) for indicated times. We found that LAMP3 expression level was significantly increased after these stimulation. Next, the pressure overload-induced cardiac remodelling mouse model was performed in the wild type C57BL/6J mice. After 4 and 8 weeks of transverse aortic constriction (TAC), obvious cardiac remodelling was observed in the wild type mice compared with sham group. Importantly, LAMP3 expression level was gradually elevated from 2 weeks to 8 weeks after TAC surgery. Furthermore, in human dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) hearts, severe cardiac remodelling was observed, as evidenced by remarkably increased cardiomyocytes cross sectional area and collagen deposition. Notably, the mRNA and protein level of LAMP3 were significantly increased in the DCM hearts compared with donor hearts. Immunohistochemistry assay showed that LAMP3 was expression in the cardiomyocytes and responsible for its increased expression in the hearts. Our data indicated that LAMP3 might have a potential role in the process of cardiac remodelling.