ApoO, a novel apolipoprotein, is an original glycoprotein up-regulated by diabetes in human heart

Obesity is an independent risk factor for cardiac failure. Obesity promotes excessive deposition of fat in adipose and nonadipose tissues. Intramyocardial lipid overload is a relatively common finding in nonischemic heart failure, especially in obese and diabetic patients, and promotes lipoapoptosis that contributes to the alteration of cardiac function. Lipoprotein production has been proposed as a heart-protective mechanism through the unloading of surplus cellular lipids. We previously analyzed the heart transcriptome in a dog nutritional model of obesity, and we identified a new apolipoprotein, regulated by obesity in heart, which is the subject of this study. We detected this new protein in the following lipoproteins: high density lipoprotein, low density lipoprotein, and very low density lipoprotein. We designated it apolipoprotein O. Apolipoprotein O is a 198-amino acid protein that contains a 23-amino acid-long signal peptide. The apolipoprotein O gene is expressed in a set of human tissues. Confocal immunofluorescence microscopy colocalized apolipoprotein O and perilipins, a cellular marker of the lipid droplet. Chondroitinase ABC deglycosylation analysis or cell incubation with p-nitrophenyl-beta-D-xyloside indicated that apolipoprotein O belongs to the proteoglycan family. Naringenin or CP-346086 treatments indicated that apolipoprotein O secretion requires microsomal triglyceride transfer protein activity. Apolipoprotein O gene expression is up-regulated in the human diabetic heart. Apolipoprotein O promoted cholesterol efflux from macrophage cells. To our knowledge, apolipoprotein O is the first chondroitin sulfate chain containing apolipoprotein. Apolipoprotein O may be involved in myocardium-protective mechanisms against lipid accumulation, or it may have specific properties mediated by its unique glycosylation pattern.