Stage-specific Alternative Rna Splicing Attunes Cardiomyocyte Proliferation And Contraction

During heart development, cardiomyocytes display reduced proliferation and enhanced contractility to support cardiac functional maturation, but the mechanistic basis is not fully understood. Alternative RNA splicing is an important mechanism of RNA posttranscriptional modification and gene regulation in the heart. In studying a cardiac RNA binding protein, RBPMS (RNA-binding protein with multiple splicing), we found that RBPMS mediates distinct RNA splicing profiles in adult hearts versus neonatal hearts, indicating its stage-specific modulation of alternative RNA splicing. We showed that RBPMS regulates the splicing of cytoskeletal genes to enable proliferation of neonatal cardiomyocytes. In adult hearts, RBPMS regulates the splicing of sarcomere genes to support cardiac contraction. Cardiac-specific loss of RBPMS causes severe dilated cardiomyopathy and early lethality in adult mice. Using both in vivo and in vitro approaches, we found that the absence of RBPMS caused aberrant splicing of some key sarcomeric components, including Titin and Nexilin, causing cardiomyocyte contractile defects. Intriguingly, we also showed that RBPMS interacts with other cardiac RNA binding proteins, such as RBM20, suggesting their synergistic effects on cardiomyocyte physiology. Our work provides novel insights into how RNA binding proteins regulate cardiomyocyte proliferation and contraction by mediating alternative RNA splicing.