Reilly G Fankhauser, Douglas B Johnson, Javid J Moslehi, Justin M Balko
{"title":"Preclinical mouse models of immune checkpoint inhibitor-associated myocarditis.","authors":"Reilly G Fankhauser, Douglas B Johnson, Javid J Moslehi, Justin M Balko","doi":"10.1038/s44161-025-00640-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44161-025-00640-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this Review, we present a comprehensive analysis of preclinical models used to study immune checkpoint inhibitor-associated myocarditis (hereafter ICI-myocarditis), a potentially lethal immune-related adverse event. We begin by providing an overview of immune checkpoint inhibitors, highlighting how their efficacy in cancer treatment is counterbalanced by their predisposition to cause immune-related adverse events. Next, we draw from human data to identify disease features that an effective mouse model should ideally mimic. After that, we present a critical evaluation of a wide variety of existing mouse models including genetic, pharmacological and humanized models. We summarize insights gathered about the underlying mechanisms of ICI-myocarditis and the role of mouse models in these discoveries. We conclude with a perspective on the future of preclinical models, highlighting potential model improvements and research directions that could strengthen our understanding of ICI-myocarditis, ultimately improving patient outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":74245,"journal":{"name":"Nature cardiovascular research","volume":" ","pages":"526-538"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144009110","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tertiary lymphoid organs in human atherosclerotic plaques.","authors":"Devadatta Gosavi, Klaus Ley","doi":"10.1038/s44161-025-00645-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44161-025-00645-x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":74245,"journal":{"name":"Nature cardiovascular research","volume":" ","pages":"500-502"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144057989","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Shuang Qian, Devran Ugurlu, Elliot Fairweather, Laura Dal Toso, Yu Deng, Marina Strocchi, Ludovica Cicci, Richard E Jones, Hassan Zaidi, Sanjay Prasad, Brian P Halliday, Daniel Hammersley, Xingchi Liu, Gernot Plank, Edward Vigmond, Reza Razavi, Alistair Young, Pablo Lamata, Martin Bishop, Steven Niederer
{"title":"Developing cardiac digital twin populations powered by machine learning provides electrophysiological insights in conduction and repolarization.","authors":"Shuang Qian, Devran Ugurlu, Elliot Fairweather, Laura Dal Toso, Yu Deng, Marina Strocchi, Ludovica Cicci, Richard E Jones, Hassan Zaidi, Sanjay Prasad, Brian P Halliday, Daniel Hammersley, Xingchi Liu, Gernot Plank, Edward Vigmond, Reza Razavi, Alistair Young, Pablo Lamata, Martin Bishop, Steven Niederer","doi":"10.1038/s44161-025-00650-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44161-025-00650-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Large-cohort imaging and diagnostic studies often assess cardiac function but overlook underlying biological mechanisms. Cardiac digital twins (CDTs) are personalized physics-constrained and physiology-constrained in silico representations, uncovering multi-scale insights tied to these mechanisms. In this study, we constructed 3,461 CDTs from the UK Biobank and another 359 from an ischemic heart disease (IHD) cohort, using cardiac magnetic resonance images and electrocardiograms. We show here that sex-specific differences in QRS duration were fully explained by myocardial anatomy while their myocardial conduction velocity (CV) remains similar across sexes but changes with age and obesity, indicating myocardial tissue remodeling. Longer QTc intervals in obese females were attributed to larger delayed rectifier potassium conductance <math> <msub><mrow><mi>G</mi></mrow> <mrow><mi>KrKs</mi></mrow> </msub> </math> . These findings were validated in the IHD cohort. Moreover, CV and <math> <msub><mrow><mi>G</mi></mrow> <mrow><mi>KrKs</mi></mrow> </msub> </math> were associated with cardiac function, lifestyle and mental health phenotypes, and CV was also linked with adverse clinical outcomes. Our study demonstrates how CDT development at scale reveals biological insights across populations.</p>","PeriodicalId":74245,"journal":{"name":"Nature cardiovascular research","volume":"4 5","pages":"624-636"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12084159/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144087079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kan Li, Weiqi Qian, Fangni Zhang, Wenhui Zhang, Huizhen Lv, Meixi Quan, Weiyan Sun, Ruixin Liu, Xinyi Cao, Zhong Xian, Suya Bao, Hongfeng Jiang, Jie Du, Meng Zhang, Yupeng Chen, Jian Zhang, Cha Han, Ding Ai
{"title":"Maternal high-fat diet exacerbates atherosclerosis development in offspring through epigenetic memory.","authors":"Kan Li, Weiqi Qian, Fangni Zhang, Wenhui Zhang, Huizhen Lv, Meixi Quan, Weiyan Sun, Ruixin Liu, Xinyi Cao, Zhong Xian, Suya Bao, Hongfeng Jiang, Jie Du, Meng Zhang, Yupeng Chen, Jian Zhang, Cha Han, Ding Ai","doi":"10.1038/s44161-025-00622-4","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44161-025-00622-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Maternal exposure to a Western-type diet (WD) increases the susceptibility of adult offspring to atherosclerosis, partly because fetal endothelial cells (ECs) become dysfunctional and inflamed due to risk factors transmitted via maternal-fetal blood exchange. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here we show that maternal WD accelerates atherogenesis in adult offspring mice by regulating chromatin dynamics through activator protein-1 (AP-1) in aortic ECs, inducing inflammatory memory at the chromatin level. We found that 27-hydroxycholesterol is involved in memory establishment and also acts as a secondary stimulator, amplifying the expression of inflammatory factors and enhancing the enrichment of AP-1/p300 and H3K27ac in ECs. Inhibiting AP-1 binding to chromatin reduced the inflammatory response in human umbilical vein ECs from mothers with hypercholesterolemia and decreased atherogenesis in offspring mice exposed to maternal WD. Our findings demonstrate that maternal WD exacerbates EC dysfunction and atherosclerosis in adult offspring by inducing AP-1-associated epigenetic memory, which increases chromatin accessibility to inflammatory genes.</p>","PeriodicalId":74245,"journal":{"name":"Nature cardiovascular research","volume":" ","pages":"362-379"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143634915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sex and the Garden of Eden.","authors":"Peter Libby, Michael C Honigberg, Amélie Vromman","doi":"10.1038/s44161-025-00624-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s44161-025-00624-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":74245,"journal":{"name":"Nature cardiovascular research","volume":"4 4","pages":"356-357"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144031788","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Manuel E Cantu Gutierrez, Matthew C Hill, Gabrielle E Largoza, William B Gillespie, James F Martin, Joshua D Wythe
{"title":"Mapping the transcriptional and epigenetic landscape of organotypic endothelial diversity in the developing and adult mouse.","authors":"Manuel E Cantu Gutierrez, Matthew C Hill, Gabrielle E Largoza, William B Gillespie, James F Martin, Joshua D Wythe","doi":"10.1038/s44161-025-00618-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44161-025-00618-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The vascular endothelium features unique molecular and functional properties across different vessel types, such as between arteries, veins and capillaries, as well as between different organs, such as the leaky sinusoidal endothelium of the liver versus the impermeable vessels of the brain. However, the transcriptional networks governing endothelial organ specialization remain unclear. Here we profile the accessible chromatin and transcriptional landscapes of the endothelium from the mouse liver, lung, heart, kidney, brain and retina, across developmental time, to identify potential transcriptional regulators of endothelial heterogeneity. We then determine which of these putative regulators are conserved in human brain endothelial cells, and using single-cell transcriptomic profiling, we define which regulatory networks are active during brain maturation. Finally, we show that the putative transcriptional regulators identified by these three approaches molecularly and functionally reprogram naive endothelial cells. Thus, this resource can be used to identify potential transcriptional regulators controlling the establishment and maintenance of organ-specific endothelial specialization.</p>","PeriodicalId":74245,"journal":{"name":"Nature cardiovascular research","volume":" ","pages":"473-495"},"PeriodicalIF":9.4,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12023908/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143652543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}