Transcriptome profiling of cardiomyocytes treated with antiretroviral drugs

The use of antiretroviral therapy (ART) improved the life expectancy of HIV patients through the suppression of HIV propagation in host. However, recent studies suggest that long-term use of ART induces comorbid conditions and heart failure in surviving HIV patients. The mechanism associated with the antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) induced cardiotoxicity and heart failure is not clear. In this study, we performed an RNA sequencing with ARV drugs-treated neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes to explore drugs-induced cardiotoxicity. RNA-sequencing data analysis identified 1756 differentially expressed genes (padj<0.05) in cardiomyocytes. Out of 1756 genes, 701 genes were upregulated, and 1055 genes were downregulated in drug-treated cardiomyocytes. Functional enrichment analysis of differentially expressed genes was performed using clusterProfiler R and ingenuity pathway analysis. Our study showed that upregulated genes were linked with the biological processes associated with apoptosis, cellular movement or locomotion, cellular stress, and immune response. In contrast, down-regulated genes were involved in cell division and metabolism. Interestingly, we also found that ARV drugs treatment significantly upregulates the expression of a set of genes involved in cardiac enlargement and hypertrophy in the heart. Collectively, ARVs treatment in cardiomyocytes induces cardiotoxicity through differentially regulation of pathological genes expression in cardiomyocytes. Evalualtion of differentially expressed genes in antiretroviral drugs treated cardiomyocytes