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A comprehensive guide to genetic variants and post-translational modifications of cardiac troponin C

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Journal of Muscle Research and Cell Motility Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Familial cardiomyopathy is an inherited disease that affects the structure and function of heart muscle and has an extreme range of phenotypes. Among the millions of affected individuals, patients with hypertrophic (HCM), dilated (DCM), or left ventricular non-compaction (LVNC) cardiomyopathy can experience morphologic changes of the heart which lead to sudden death in the most detrimental cases. TNNC1, the gene that codes for cardiac troponin C (cTnC), is a sarcomere gene associated with cardiomyopathies in which probands exhibit young age of presentation and high death, transplant or ventricular fibrillation events relative to TNNT2 and TNNI3 probands. Using GnomAD, ClinVar, UniProt and PhosphoSitePlus databases and published literature, an extensive list to date of identified genetic variants in TNNC1 and post-translational modifications (PTMs) in cTnC was compiled. Additionally, a recent cryo–EM structure of the cardiac thin filament regulatory unit was used to localize each functionally studied amino acid variant and each PTM (acetylation, glycation, s-nitrosylation, phosphorylation) in the structure of cTnC. TNNC1 has a large number of variants (> 100) relative to other genes of the same transcript size. Surprisingly, the mapped variant amino acids and PTMs are distributed throughout the cTnC structure. While many cardiomyopathy-associated variants are localized in α-helical regions of cTnC, this was not statistically significant χ2 (p = 0.72). Exploring the variants in TNNC1 and PTMs of cTnC in the contexts of cardiomyopathy association, physiological modulation and potential non-canonical roles provides insights into the normal function of cTnC along with the many facets of TNNC1 as a cardiomyopathic gene.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Mark P. Szczypinski and Elliott P. Soto for excellent assistance in examining the predicted effects of single amino acid changes in cTnC on cellular localization.

Funding

This work was supported by U.S. American Heart Association Grant 19PRE34380628 (to J.R.J.), Florida State University’s Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) (to P.B.C.), American Heart Association Scientist Development Grant 16SDG29120002 (to M.S.P.), Duke University School of Medicine (to A.P.L.) and U.S. National Institutes of Health National Heart Lung and Blood Institute grant HL128683 (to J.R.P.).

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Correspondence to P. Bryant Chase or Hanna J. Tadros.

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Reinoso, T.R., Landim-Vieira, M., Shi, Y. et al. A comprehensive guide to genetic variants and post-translational modifications of cardiac troponin C. J Muscle Res Cell Motil 42, 323–342 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10974-020-09592-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10974-020-09592-5

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