The Crosstalk between Acetylation and Phosphorylation: Emerging New Roles for HDAC Inhibitors in the Heart

Approximately five million United States (U.S.) adults are diagnosed with heart failure (HF), with eight million U.S. adults projected to suffer from HF by 2030. With five-year mortality rates following HF diagnosis approximating 50%, novel therapeutic treatments are needed for HF patients. Pre-clinical animal models of HF have highlighted histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors as efficacious therapeutics that can stop and potentially reverse cardiac remodeling and dysfunction linked with HF development. HDACs remove acetyl groups from nucleosomal histones, altering DNA-histone protein electrostatic interactions in the regulation of gene expression. However, HDACs also remove acetyl groups from non-histone proteins in various tissues. Changes in histone and non-histone protein acetylation plays a key role in protein structure and function that can alter other post translational modifications (PTMs), including protein phosphorylation. Protein phosphorylation is a well described PTM that is important for cardiac signal transduction, protein activity and gene expression, yet the functional role for acetylation-phosphorylation cross-talk in the myocardium remains less clear. This review will focus on the regulation and function for acetylation-phosphorylation cross-talk in the heart, with a focus on the role for HDACs and HDAC inhibitors as regulators of acetyl-phosphorylation cross-talk in the control of cardiac function.