Familial Dilated Cardiomyopathy: A Novel MED9 Short Isoform Identification

Abstract

Familial dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is among the leading indications for heart transplantation. DCM alters the transcriptomic profile. The alteration or activation/silencing of physiologically operating transcripts may explain the onset and progression of this pathological state. The mediator complex (MED) plays a fundamental role in the transcription process. The aim of this study is to investigate the MED subunits, which are altered in DCM, to identify target crossroads genes. RNA sequencing allowed us to identify specific MED subunits that are altered during familial DCM, transforming into human myocardial samples. N = 13 MED subunits were upregulated and n = 7 downregulated. MED9 alone was significantly reduced in patients compared to healthy subjects (HS) (FC = −1.257; p < 0.05). Interestingly, we found a short MED9 isoform (MED9s) (ENSG00000141026.6), which was upregulated when compared to the full-transcript isoform (MED9f). Motif identification analysis yielded several significant matches (p < 0.05), such as GATA4, which is downregulated in CHD. Moreover, although the protein–protein interaction network showed FOG2/ZFPM2, FOS and ID2 proteins to be the key interacting partners of GATA4, only FOG2/ZFPM2 overexpression showed an interaction score of “high confidence” ≥ 0.84. A significant change in the MED was observed during HF. For the first time, the MED9 subunit was significantly reduced between familial DCM and HS (p < 0.05), showing an increased MED9s isoform in DCM patients with respect to its full-length transcript. MED9 and GATA4 shared the same sequence motif and were involved in a network with FOG2/ZFPM2, FOS, and ID2, proteins already implicated in cardiac development.