Reversible protein phosphorylation is an essential component of metazoan signaling and cardiovascular physiology. Protein kinase activity is required for regulation of cardiac ion channel and membrane receptor function, metabolism, and transcription, and aberrant kinase function is widely observed across disparate cardiac pathologies. In fact, multiple generations of cardiac therapies (eg. beta-adrenergic receptor blockers) have targeted cardiac kinase regulatory cascades. In contrast, essentially nothing is known regarding the mechanisms that regulate cardiac phosphatase activity at baseline or in cardiovascular disease. Protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) is a key phosphatase with multiple roles in cardiac physiology. Here we demonstrate the surprisingly complex regulatory platforms that control PP2A holoenzyme activity in heart. We present the first full characterization of the expression and regulation of the PP2A family of polypeptides in heart. We identify the expression of seventeen different PP2A genes in human heart and define their differential expression and distribution across species and in different cardiac chambers. We show unique subcellular distributions of PP2A regulatory subunits in myocytes, strongly implicating the regulatory subunit in conferring PP2A target specificity in vivo. We report striking differential regulation of PP2A scaffolding, regulatory, and catalytic subunit expression in multiple models of cardiovascular disease as well as in human heart failure samples. Importantly, we demonstrate that PP2A regulation in disease extends far beyond expression and subcellular location, by identifying and describing differential post-translational modifications of the PP2A holoenzyme in human heart failure. Furthermore, we go to characterize a mechanism for this method of post-translational modification that may represent a pathway capable of being therapeutically manipulated in human heart failure. Lastly we provide evidence that dysregulation of phosphatase activity contributes to the cellular pathology associated with a previously described inheritable human arrhythmia syndrome, highlighting the importance of the PP2A in cardiovascular physiology and disease. Together, our findings provide new insight into the functional complexity of PP2A expression, activity, and regulation in heart and in human cardiovascular disease and identify potentially new and specific gene and subcellular targets for the treatment of human arrhythmia and heart failure.

Reversible protein phosphorylation is an essential component of metazoan signaling and cardiovascular physiology. Protein kinase activity is required for regulation of cardiac ion channel and membrane receptor function, metabolism, and transcription, and aberrant kinase function is widely observed across disparate cardiac pathologies. In fact, multiple generations of cardiac therapies (eg. beta-adrenergic receptor blockers) have targeted cardiac kinase regulatory cascades. In contrast, essentially nothing is known regarding the mechanisms that regulate cardiac phosphatase activity at baseline or in cardiovascular disease. Protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) is a key phosphatase with multiple roles in cardiac physiology. Here we demonstrate the surprisingly complex regulatory platforms that control PP2A holoenzyme activity in heart. We present the first full characterization of the expression and regulation of the PP2A family of polypeptides in heart. We identify the expression of seventeen different PP2A genes in human heart and define their differential expression and distribution across species and in different cardiac chambers. We show unique subcellular distributions of PP2A regulatory subunits in myocytes, strongly implicating the regulatory subunit in conferring PP2A target specificity in vivo. We report striking differential regulation of PP2A scaffolding, regulatory, and catalytic subunit expression in multiple models of cardiovascular disease as well as in human heart failure samples. Importantly, we demonstrate that PP2A regulation in disease extends far beyond expression and subcellular location, by identifying and describing differential post-translational modifications of the PP2A holoenzyme in human heart failure. Furthermore, we go to characterize a mechanism for this method of post-translational modification that may represent a pathway capable of being therapeutically manipulated in human heart failure. Lastly we provide evidence that dysregulation of phosphatase activity contributes to the cellular pathology associated with a previously described inheritable human arrhythmia syndrome, highlighting the importance of the PP2A in cardiovascular physiology and disease. Together, our findings provide new insight into the functional complexity of PP2A expression, activity, and regulation in heart and in human cardiovascular disease and identify potentially new and specific gene and subcellular targets for the treatment of human arrhythmia and heart failure.

Ankyrin-B (Ank-B) is a crucial scaffolding protein regulating expression and localization of contractile machinery in the cardiac muscle. Recent genetic investigations in the First Nations Community, the Gitxsan of Northern BC, identified a mutation in Ank-B (p.S646F c.1937 C>T) associated with a cardiac arrhythmia, Long QT Syndrome Type 4 (LQTS4). Distinct from other LQTS4 subtypes, individuals harbouring the p.S646F variant exhibit development deficits including cardiomyopathies and accessory electrical pathways. How p.S646F interferes with the development of the heart is unknown due to a fundamental lack of understanding regarding Ank-B proteostasis and its role in cardiac differentiation. Initial in silico analyses predicted the p.S646F mutant to be deleterious to the Ank-B protein. Using in vitro techniques, I determined p.S646F mutant reduced levels of Ank-B in H9c2 rat ventricular cardiomyoblasts. Furthermore, haploinsufficiency in mice was previously shown to result in developmental cardiac deficits. I, therefore, hypothesized that p.S646F interferes with Ank-B proteostasis, thereby affecting cardiomyocyte development. I showed that p.S646F destabilized Ank-B in cardiomyoblasts, due to increased degradation via the proteasome. Furthermore, overexpression of p.S646F Ank-B had a significant impact on cellular behaviour including reduced cell viability, and altered expression of cellular differentiation markers. Together these data address critical knowledge gaps with regards to Ank-B protein homeostasis and the role of Ank-B in cardiomyocyte viability and development. These findings inform the diagnosis and treatment of patients with the p.S646F variant, creating potential targeted pathways of intervention, and furthering our understanding of the role of the Ank-B in the development of the heart. / Graduate / 2019-04-26

<p>Organelle transport in eukaryotic cells is regulated by a precisely coordinated activity of phosphoinositide lipids, small GTPases, and molecular motors. Despite the extensive study of functional activities of individual regulators, how these activities promote precise deliveries of particular membrane proteins to specific cellular locations remained unclear. Ankyrin-B, which is previously well recognized as a plasma membrane adaptor that assembles diverse specialized plasma membrane domains, exhibited an unexpected role in intracellular transport. This thesis establishes ankyrin-B as a master integrator of the polarized long range organelle transport via direct interactions with Rab GTPase Activating Protein 1 Like (RabGAP1L), phosphatidylinositol 3-phosphate (PI3P) and dynactin 4. In Chapter 2, I identified an ankyrin-B death domain binding partner, RabGAP1L, that specifically interacts with ankyrin-B on intracellular organelles and requires ankyrin-B for its proper localization. In Chapter 3, I demonstrated that ankyrin-B is a PI3P-effector in mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) and promotes the polarized transport of associated organelles in migrating cells in a RabGAP1L-dependent manner. I continued to investigate what membranes/membrane-associated proteins utilize the ankyrin-B/RabGAP1L pathway in Chapter 4 and identified α5β1-integrin as a cargo whose polarized transport and recycling are ankyrin-B-dependent. I further presented that ankyrin-B, through recruiting RabGAP1L to PI3P-positive/Rab22A-associated endosomes containing α5β1-integrin, promotes polarized recycling of α5β1-integrin in migrating mouse embryonic fibroblasts. In collaboration with James Bear (UNC Chapel Hill), we further demonstrated that this ankyrin-B/RabGAP1L-mediated pathway is required for haptotaxis along fibronectin gradients. In Chapter 5, I elucidated the in vivo interaction between ankyrin-B and RabGAP1L. I demonstrated that ankyrin-B specifically interacts with RabGAP1L at long axon tracts in the brain and at costameres in the skeletal muscle. I also show the phenotypic analysis of ankyrin-B floxDD mice as an initial attempt to determine the physiological function of the ankyrin-B death domain in vivo. Together, this thesis dissects an ankyrin-B-mediated molecular mechanism for polarized endosomal trafficking and α5β1-integrin recycling during directional cell migration, and provides new insights into how phosphoinositide lipids, Rab GTPases, and molecular motor activities are coordinated to control the directional transport of specialized membrane cargos.</p> / Dissertation

Ankyrin B (AnkB) is a scaffolding protein, acting as a bridge between ion channels and cytoskeleton networks. AnkB variants are associated with cognitive disorders including autism spectrum disorder and epilepsy. In the brain, AnkB interacts with Cav2.1, the pore-forming subunit of P/Q type voltage gated calcium channels. However, how AnkB regulates Cav2.1 is not fully understood. Using HEK293T cells, we discovered that AnkB increases Cav2.1 expression levels but does not change Cav2.1 surface levels. AnkB p.S646F increases Cav2.1 to an even greater level of expression, again without impacting Cav2.1 surface levels. Looking at a partial loss of AnkB in glutamatergic neurons, overall Cav2.1 levels decreased at P30 but the synaptosomal fraction was not impacted. Our findings indicate that AnkB plays a role in regulating an intracellular pool of Cav2.1 but does not affect the surface or the synaptosomal pools of Cav2.1. This intracellular pool of Cav2.1 may play an important role in neuronal function and homeostasis, suggesting a mechanism for neuronal pathogenicity of AnkB variants. / Graduate / 2020-08-06

<p>Studies in the ankyrin-B+/- mouse reveal that ankyrin-B deficiency is associated with both the benefits of enhanced cardiac contractility and the costs of arrhythmia, early senescence, reduced lifespan, and impaired glucose tolerance. This constellation of traits is known as ankyrin-B syndrome, which may have important implications for humans possessing functional ankyrin-B mutations. We found that ankyrin-B variants are surprisingly common, ranging from 2 percent of European individuals to 8 percent in individuals from West Africa. Furthermore, by studying of the metabolic phenotype associated with ankyrin-B mouse, we have uncovered a major new dimension to ankyrin-B syndrome, a link between ankyrin-B and parasympathetic control of insulin secretion. Stimulation of pancreatic beta cells by acetylcholine augments glucose-stimulated insulin secretion by inducing inositol-trisphosphate receptor (InsP3R)-mediated Ca2+ release. We report that ankyrin-B is also enriched in pancreatic beta cells. Ankyrin-B-deficient islets display impaired potentiation of insulin secretion by the muscarinic agonist carbachol, blunted carbachol-mediated intracellular Ca2+- release, and reduced InsP3R stability. Ankyrin-B(+/-) mice also display postprandial hyperglycemia, consistent with impaired parasympathetic potentiation of glucose-stimulated insulin secretion. R1788W mutation of ankyrin-B impairs its function in pancreatic islets and associates with type 2 diabetes in Caucasians and Hispanics. Finally, we have generated knockin mice corresponding to the R1788W and L1622I mutations. Functional characterization of these animals will allow us to better understand the relationship between human ankyrin-B variants and ankyrin-B syndrome.</p> / Dissertation