Abstract 20627: Modulation of Cardiac Sodium Channel by Palmitoylation and Its Association With Cardiac Disease Mutations

Cardiac sodium channel (Nav1.5) is responsible for the generation and propagation of the cardiac action potential, which underlies cardiac excitability. It can be modified by a variety of post-translational modifications. Palmitoylation is one of the most common post-translational lipid modifications that can dynamically regulate protein life cycle and functional activity. In our study, we identified palmitoylation on Nav1.5 and its alteration in channel biophysical properties. Nav1.5 palmitoylation was identified in both HEK 293 cells stably expressing Nav1.5 and cardiac tissues using acyl-biotin exchange assay. Nav1.5 palmitoylation was inhibited by pre-incubating the cells with the inhibitor 2-Br-Palmitate (2BP, 25uM, 24hrs). Biophysically, 2BP treatment drastically shifted the channel steady-state inactivation to more hyperpolarized voltages, suggesting palmitoylation altering channel functional activity. In addition, four predicted endogenous palmitoylation sites were identified using CSS-Palm 3.0. Site-directed mutagenesis method was used to generate a cysteine removing background of wt Nav1.5 to study the role of predicted sites. Patch clamp analysis of wt and cysteine-removed Nav1.5 revealed a significant change in channel biophysics. 2BP treatment significantly shifted steady-state inactivation of wt Nav1.5 while not affecting cysteine-removed Nav1.5 significantly, indicating the important role of these four cysteine sites in modulating channel palmitoylation. Moreover, several LQT disease mutations were identified to potentially add or remove palmitoylation sites. Further analysis of these disease mutations revealed a significant shift in channel steady-state inactivation and this alteration cannot be seen with the substitution of other residues on the same site, suggesting the specific role of cysteine residue in causing the functional alteration. For the LQT mutation that removes potential palmitoylation site, 2BP treatment did not affect channel biophysical properties, indicating the essential role of this cysteine in channel palmitoylation. These results suggest that palmitoylation on Nav1.5 regulates channel functional activity and its modulation may contribute to new cardiac channelopathies.