1. Academic Validation
  2. Inhibition of cardiomyocyte differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells by Ribavirin: Implication for its cardiac developmental toxicity

Inhibition of cardiomyocyte differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells by Ribavirin: Implication for its cardiac developmental toxicity

  • Toxicology. 2020 Apr 15;435:152422. doi: 10.1016/j.tox.2020.152422.
Danyu Ye 1 Zhengyi Bao 1 Yang Yu 1 Zhenbo Han 1 Ying Yu 1 Zihang Xu 1 Wenya Ma 1 Ye Yuan 1 Lai Zhang 1 Yan Xu 1 Tianshuai Ma 1 Shenzhen Liu 1 Xinlu Gao 1 Gege Yan 1 Qi Huang 1 Xiuxiu Wang 1 Bingjie Hua 1 Fan Yang 1 Yuan Li 1 Benzhi Cai 2
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Department of Pharmacy at the Second Affiliated Hospital, and Department of Pharmacology (The Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Research, Ministry of Education) at College of Pharmacy, Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150086, China.
  • 2 Department of Pharmacy at the Second Affiliated Hospital, and Department of Pharmacology (The Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Research, Ministry of Education) at College of Pharmacy, Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150086, China.; The Translational Medicine Research and Cooperation Center of Northern China, Heilongjiang Academy of Medical Sciences, Harbin 150081, China. Electronic address: caibz@ems.hrbmu.edu.cn.
Abstract

Ribavirin has been proven to be an Antiviral treatment, whereas there are still risks of hemolysis and congenital malformation. Abnormal cardiac development contributes to the occurrence and development of many heart diseases. However, there is so far no evidence that ribavirin induces human cardiac developmental toxicity. Herein, we employed the cardiac differentiation model of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) to determine the impact of ribavirin on heart development. Our data showed that ribavirin at clinically high concentrations (5 and 10 μM) significantly inhibited the proliferation and differentiation of hiPSCs from mesoderm to cardiac progenitor cells and cardiac progenitor cells to cardiomyocytes, but not from pluripotent status to mesoderm. Meanwhile, DCFH-DA staining revealed that ribavirin could increase ROS content in the mid-phase of differentiation. In addition, ribavirin treatment (1, 5 and 10 μM) remarkably caused DNA damage which was shown by the increase of γH2AX-positive cells and upregulation of the p53 during the differentiation of hiPSCs from mesoderm to cardiac progenitor cells. Moreover, exposuring to ribavirin (5 and 10 μM) markedly upregulated the expression of lncRNAs Gas5 in both mid-phase and late phase of differentiation and HBL1 in the mid-phase. In conclusion, our results suggest that ribavirin is detrimental in cardiac differentiation of hiPSCs, which may be associated with DNA damage, upregulated p53 and increased Gas5. It may provide the evidence for the rational clinical application of ribavirin.

Keywords

Cardiac developmental toxicity; Cardiomyocyte differentiation; DNA damage; Proliferation; Ribavirin; hiPSCs.

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