# Epigenetic signaling, pathological cardiac hypertrophy and Western diet

> **NIH NIH R01** · TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCE CTR · 2021 · $562,332

## Abstract

PROJECT DESCRIPTION/ABSTRACT
 Excessive consumption of Western diet (WD) is a risk factor for the development of clinical syndromes
such as cardiac dysfunction and obesity. Long-term intake of this type of food can cause cardiomyopathy with
contractile dysfunction and metabolic disorders including obesity and diabetes mellitus. Meanwhile,
pathological disorders such as obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes mellitus can elicit this harmful
environment in the heart.
 Therefore, the majority of the studies on cardiac derangement by WD have been closely associated with
diabetes and obesity cardiomyopathy investigations due to their natural connection and overlap. Because of
this complexity of the disease, the initial molecular signaling that triggers cardiac derangement preceding
metabolic syndromes is relatively understudied and remains a challenge in the field.
 In clinical scenario, patients have a relative “healthy period” (subclinical) prior to the occurrence of cardiac
dysfunction and metabolic syndromes after excessive consumption of WD. The signature profiles of
deleterious molecular signaling in the heart in this subclinical period remains largely unknown due to obvious
challenges in human studies.
 A high carbohydrate and fatty acid-enriched diet is generally akin to the major cause of obesity in the
Western world. While there is no fatty acid-enriched, high carbohydrate diet that could exactly mimic the
human diet in animal models, WD feed has been well characterized and widely used in various animal studies.
Since long-term WD causes obesity, diabetes mellitus, heart failure and even concomitant coronary artery
disease, the investigators chose short-term WD feeding in order to explore early epigenetic signaling without
comorbidity of these global chronic syndromes.
 The animal models include a heart specific knockout as well as a heart specific genetic overexpression
transgenic mice. The mechanistic findings from this proposal should result in clinical implications, which
provide a foundation for future pharmacological translation and prevention.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10132386
- **Project number:** 5R01HL148133-02
- **Recipient organization:** TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCE CTR
- **Principal Investigator:** Jiang Chang
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $562,332
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-04-01 → 2024-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10132386

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10132386, Epigenetic signaling, pathological cardiac hypertrophy and Western diet (5R01HL148133-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10132386. Licensed CC0.

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