Therapeutic safety of high myocardial expression levels of the molecular inotrope S100A1 in a preclinical heart failure model

Low levels of the molecular inotrope S100A1 are sufficient to rescue post-ischemic heart failure (HF). As a prerequisite to clinical application and to determine the safety of myocardial S100A1 DNA-based therapy, we investigated the effects of high myocardial S100A1 expression levels on the cardiac contractile function and occurrence of arrhythmia in a preclinical large animal HF model. At 2 weeks after myocardial infarction domestic pigs presented significant left ventricular (LV) contractile dysfunction. Retrograde application of AAV6-S100A1 (1.5 +/- 1013 tvp) via the anterior cardiac vein (ACV) resulted in high-level myocardial S100A1 protein peak expression of up to 95-fold above control. At 14 weeks, pigs with high-level myocardial S100A1 protein overexpression did not show abnormalities in the electrocardiogram. Electrophysiological right ventricular stimulation ruled out an increased susceptibility to monomorphic ventricular arrhythmia. High-level S100A1 protein overexpression in the LV myocardium resulted in a significant increase in LV ejection fraction (LVEF), albeit to a lesser extent than previously reported with low S100A1 protein overexpression. Cardiac remodeling was, however, equally reversed. High myocardial S100A1 protein overexpression neither increases the occurrence of cardiac arrhythmia nor causes detrimental effects on myocardial contractile function in vivo. In contrast, this study demonstrates a broad therapeutic range of S100A1 gene therapy in post-ischemic HF using a preclinical large animal model.