Project Summary
Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a leading cause of death nationwide, with 65% of mortality due to cardiovascular
disease. The term “diabetic cardiomyopathy (T2DCM)” refers to a condition with adverse myocardial remodeling
in the absence of hypertension and vascular pathology. Although T2D and CVD are tightly intertwined, we lack
a deeper understanding of T2DCM at the molecular and cellular levels. Pathological mechanisms within the
primary constituents of the heart – cardiomyocytes, fibroblasts, and endothelial cells – are incompletely
understood. Furthermore, how these metabolic signals converge within the cardiac microenvironment remains
elusive. First developed to treat T2D, sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) prevent glucose
reabsorption by the kidney. However, recent clinical trials of SGLT2i (canagliflozin, dapagliflozin, and
empagliflozin) further demonstrated an unexpected and substantial reduction in heart failure hospitalizations in
patients with and without T2D. Since SGLT2 is lowly expressed in the heart, its off-target mechanisms present a
fascinating opportunity to elucidate cardiac protective targets beyond glycemic control. I hypothesize that
metabolic interplay between cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells, and fibroblasts play a role in T2DCM
pathogenesis, and SGLT2 inhibition is a tool to dissect cell-specific protective mechanisms. Since access to
human cardiac samples is limited by primary culture or post-mortem autopsy, the pre-clinical testing of
cardiovascular drugs difficult. Thus, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have become a valuable platform for
biomedical research by providing tissue-specific human cells that retain patients' genetic integrity and display
disease phenotypes in a dish. In this F32 proposal, I will harness iPSC technology to generate T2DCM models
of cardiovascular cell types for cellular and metabolic phenotyping with and without SGLT2 inhibition (Aim 1).
The iPSCs of T2D patients (10 healthy, 20 T2D) are readily available from the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute
Biobank. They will be differentiated into three cardiovascular cell types using robust protocols followed by
contractility, mitochondrial oxygen consumption rate, cellular (viability, migration, proliferation), and metabolic
function (13C-metabolomics) measurements. Next, I will construct iPSC-derived engineered heart tissues for
functional phenotyping of cellular interplay (Aim 2). I will further determine the SGLT2i-protein interactome using
limited proteolysis coupled to liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LiP-MS). Using a systems-level
approach compatible with complex biological samples will enable elucidation of drug-protein interactions relevant
to T2DCM with peptide-level resolution. In summary, this research plan presents a novel, comprehensive view
of metabolic mechanisms conferred by T2DCM pathogenesis, and SGLT2 inhibition and can be used as a
springboard for discovering new cardiac protective agents. Taken together, this project will bolster an innovative
direction for the cardiovascular community while providing me with the necessary training to become an
independent researcher of cardiac metabolic disease.