Genome-wide analysis of gene expression in infarcted and non-infarcted left ventricle from NEIL3-deficient mice subjected to myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction (MI) triggers a reparative response involving fibroblast proliferation and differentiation driving extracellular matrix modulation necessary to form a stabilizing scar. Recently, it was shown that a genetic variant of the base excision repair enzyme endonuclease VIII-like 3 (NEIL3) was associated with increased risk of MI in humans. Here, we report elevated myocardial NEIL3 expression in heart failure patients and marked myocardial upregulation of Neil3 following MI in mice, especially in a fibroblast-enriched cell fraction. Neil3-/- mice showed increased mortality after MI compared to WT, caused by myocardial rupture. Neil3-/- hearts displayed enrichment of mutations in genes involved in mitogenesis of fibroblasts and transcriptome analysis revealed dysregulated fibrosis. Correspondingly, proliferation of vimentin+ and aSMA+ (myo)fibroblasts was increased in Neil3-/- hearts following MI. We propose that NEIL3 operates in genomic regions crucial for regulation of cardiac fibroblast proliferation and thereby controls extracellular matrix modulation after MI.