DUSP14 knockout accelerates cardiac ischemia reperfusion (IR) injury through activating NF-κB and MAPKs signaling pathways modulated by ROS generation.

Inflammation and oxidative stress are significantly involved in the progression of a variety of diseases, including myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (IR). In the present study, we hypothesized a protective role of dual-specificity phosphatase 14 (DUSP14) in myocardial IR, as well as the underlying molecular mechanism. The results indicated that DUSP14 was down-regulated following cardiac IR injury. Subsequently, the wild type (WT) and DUSP14-knockout (KO) mice were included to further reveal the potential role of DUSP14 in cardiac IR injury progression. DUSP14-KO mice exhibited increased infarction area and elevated apoptosis, as evidenced by the increased TUNEL-positive cells in ischemia heart following reperfusion compared to WT mice. Further, DUSP14-KO significantly aggregated cardiac dysfunction of mice after IR injury. Cardiac IR injury to DUSP14-KO mice led to markedly increased expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and activated nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) pathway in the heart in comparison to WT mice. Meanwhile, mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs), including p38, ERK1/2 and JNK, were significantly activated by DUSO14-KO in mice after IR injury. Compared to WT mice, DUSP14-KO mice showed markedly increased oxidative stress markers in cardiac tissues, including malondialdehyde (MDA), NADPH oxidase-4 (NOX4) and p47, while decreased activities or expressions of anti-oxidants, such as glutathione (GSH), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathion reductases (GR), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and hemeoxygenase-1 (HO-1). DUSP14-knockdown (KD) in primary cardiomyocytes using its specific siRNA sequence elevated hypoxia and reoxygenation (HR)-induced activation of NF-κB and MAPKs signaling pathways, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. Intriguingly, pre-treatment of ROS scavenger, N-acetylcysteine (NAC), markedly abolished DUSP14-KD-augmented NF-κB and MAPKs activation in HR-stimulated primary cardiomyocytes. Together, the results above indicated that DUSP14 might be served as a positive regulator to attenuate cardiac IR injury. Suppressing DUSP14 exacerbated cardiac injury through activating NF-κB and MAPKs signaling pathways regulated by ROS production. Thus, DUSP14 could be a valuable target for developing treatments for myocardial IR injury.