Cardiomyopathy is a devastating complication of obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). It arises even in patients with normoglycemia (glycosylated hemoglobin, A1C ≤7 %). As obesity and T2DM are approaching epidemic levels worldwide, the cardiomyopathy associated with these diseases must be therapeutically addressed. We have recently analyzed the systemic effects of a 12-week high fat diet (HFD) on wild type mice from the C57Bl/6 (B6) strain and the wild type super-healing Murphy Roths Large (MRL) mouse strain. The MRL HFD mice gained significantly more weight than their control diet counterparts, but did not present any of the other usual systemic T2DM phenotypes.

Cardiac pathology and adaptation to HFD-induced obesity in the MRL mouse strain compared to the HFD C57Bl/6 mice were thoroughly analyzed with echocardiography, histology, qPCR, electron microscopy and immunoblots.

The obese HFD C57Bl/6 mice develop cardiac hypertrophy, cardiomyocyte lipid droplets, and initiate an ineffective metabolic adaptation of an overall increase in electron transport chain complexes. In contrast, the obese HFD MRL hearts do not display hypertrophy nor lipid droplets and their metabolism adapts quite robustly by decreasing pAMPK levels, decreasing proteins in the carbohydrate metabolism pathway and increasing proteins utilized in the β-oxidation pathway. The result of these metabolic shifts is the reduction of toxic lipid deposits and reactive oxygen species in the hearts of the obese HFD fed MRL hearts.

We have identified changes in metabolic signaling in obese HFD fed MRL mice that confer resistance to diabetic cardiomyopathy. The changes include a reduction of cardiac pAMPK, Glut4 and hexokinase2 in the MRL HFD hearts. Overall the MRL hearts down regulate glucose metabolism and favor lipid metabolism. These adaptations are essential to pursue for the identification of novel therapeutic targets to combat obesity related cardiomyopathy.