Increased myocardial contractility and enhanced exercise function in transgenoic mice overexpressing either adenylyl 5 or 8

Objective SS-adrenergic receptors (SSARs) are powerful regulators of cardiac function in vivo, activating heterotrimeric G proteins and the effector molecule adenylyl cyclase (AC). interestingly, cardiac-specific overexpression of different AC isoforms leads to variable changes in cardiac function. Whether AC overexpression affects intrinsic cardiac contractility in an isoform-specific fashion determining a change in exercise capacity is currently unknown. Methods To address this issue, we performed load- independent measurements of cardiac systolic and diastolic function by pressure-volume (PV) loop analysis in intact wild-type mice (WT) and transgenic mice overexpressing the AC isoforms 5 or 8. Results Here we show that cardiac overexpression of either AC5 or AC8 transgenic mice determined an increase in intrinsic cardiac contractility. Interestingly, AC8 transgenic mice displayed a significantly greater increase in cardiac contractility and improved active phase of relaxation. Despite these differences detected by PV loop analysis, both AC5 and AC8 mice showed a marked increase in exercise capacity on treadmill testing. Conclusions Our results demonstrate that load-independent measurements of cardiac function are needed to compare different groups of genetically-modified mouse models and to detect subtle AC isoform-specific changes in cardiac performance.