Distributed synthesis of sarcolemmal and sarcoplasmic reticulum membrane proteins in cardiac myocytes

It is widely assumed that synthesis of membrane proteins, particularly in the heart, follows the classical secretory pathway with mRNA translation occurring in perinuclear regions followed by protein trafficking to sites of deployment. However, this view is based on studies conducted in less-specialized cells, and has not been experimentally addressed in cardiac myocytes. Therefore, we undertook direct experimental investigation of protein synthesis in cardiac tissue and isolated myocytes using single-molecule visualization techniques and a novel proximity-ligated in situ hybridization approach for visualizing ribosome-associated mRNA molecules for a specific protein species, indicative of translation sites. We identify here, for the first time, that the molecular machinery for membrane protein synthesis occurs throughout the cardiac myocyte, and enables distributed synthesis of membrane proteins within sub-cellular niches where the synthesized protein functions using local mRNA pools trafficked, in part, by microtubules. We also observed cell-wide distribution of membrane protein mRNA in myocardial tissue from both non-failing and hypertrophied (failing) human hearts, demonstrating an evolutionarily conserved distributed mechanism from mouse to human. Our results identify previously unanticipated aspects of local control of cardiac myocyte biology and highlight local protein synthesis in cardiac myocytes as an important potential determinant of the heart’s biology in health and disease. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00395-021-00895-3.