Emily Meyer (Copenhagen / DK), Carolin Sailer (Copenhagen / DK), Finn Benned Hansen (Copenhagen / DK), Peter M. H. Heegaard (Kongens Lyngby / DK), Alicia Lundby (Copenhagen / DK)
The wild pigs of Ossabaw Island, USA, exhibit a remarkable propensity for obesity and develop metabolic syndrome (MetS) when subjected to prolonged high-energy diets: closely resembling the state observed in metabolically unhealthy obese humans. Within nine weeks on a high-fat, high-fructose (HFHF) diet, Ossabaw pigs nearly double their body fat percentage and exhibit symptoms of MetS including a cluster of risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Consequently, the Ossabaw pig presents as an animal model for studying obesity and MetS associated diseases.
Herein, we set out to investigate the proteomic changes in hearts associated with cardiometabolic syndrome. To this end, we investigated cardiac protein remodeling consequent to diet-induced obesity in the Ossabow pig model. Thirteen Ossabaw pigs were fed either a HFHF diet or a chow diet for 12 weeks. By the end of the 12-week period, the pigs on the HFHF diet exhibited a significant increase in body weight compared to the pigs on the chow diet. Heart tissue samples were collected from the ventricular wall and analyzed by quantitative proteomics using a TMT labeling approach. The approach led to measurement of more than 6,000 proteins. The protein remodeling in the hearts of the obese animals is evaluated for regulation of proteins involved in insulin signaling pathway, as well as protein remodeling observed in hearts of obese humans, in addition to global remodeling analyses.
By analyzing the proteomic differences between pigs fed on the different diets, we outline the cardiac protein remodeling in the Ossabaw pig model for cardiometabolic syndrome.