Cardiotrophin-1 (1. Introduction)

Expression cloning lead to the isolation of a 21.5-kDa protein, named cardiotrophin-1 CT-1), that potently induced cardiac myocyte hypertrophy in vitro. Amino acid similarity data indicate that cardiotrophin-1 is a member of the leukemia inhibitory factor/ciliary neurotrophic factor/oncostatin M/interleukin 6/interleukin 11 family of cytokines. Several members of this family that are known to signal through the transmembrane protein gp130 and stimulate cardiac myocyte hypertrophy, like cardiotrophin 1, suggesting that the gp130 signaling pathway may play a role in cardiac hypertrophy. The 1.4-kb cardiotrophin-1 mRNA is expressed in the heart and several other mouse tissues ^Ref . In mice, after E12.5 (day 12,5 post-conception), CT-1 expression is found in skeletal muscle, liver and dorsal root ganglia ^Ref . The 1.7 kb CT-1 mRNA is expressed in adult human heart, skeletal muscle, ovary, colon, prostate and testis and in fetal kidney and lung. The coding region of CT-1 is contained on three exons and is located on human chromosome 16p11.1–16p11.2. ^Ref . The expression pattern of CT-1 and its range of activities in the hematopoietic, neuronal, and developmental assays suggest that CT-1 may play an important role in other organ systems, in addition to its actions in cardiac development and hypertrophy ^Ref .