Abstract
The long-term high-fat diet (HFD) can cause myocardial lipotoxicity, which is characterized pathologically by myocardial hypertrophy, fibrosis, and remodeling and clinically by cardiac dysfunction and heart failure in patients with obesity and diabetes. Circular RNAs (circRNAs), a novel class of noncoding RNA characterized by a ring formation through covalent bonds, play a critical role in various cardiovascular diseases. However, few studies have been conducted to investigate the role and mechanism of circRNA in myocardial lipotoxicity. Here, we found that circ_005077, formed by exon 2-4 of Crmp1, was significantly upregulated in the myocardium of an HFD-fed rat. Furthermore, we identified circ_005077 as a novel ferroptosis-related regulator that plays a role in palmitic acid (PA) and HFD-induced myocardial lipotoxicity in vitro and in vivo. Mechanically, circ_005077 interacted with Cyclophilin A (CyPA) and inhibited its degradation via the ubiquitination proteasome system (UBS), thus promoting the interaction between CyPA and p47phox to enhance the activity of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidase responsible for ROS generation, subsequently inducing ferroptosis. Therefore, our results provide new insights into the mechanisms of myocardial lipotoxicity, potentially leading to the identification of a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of myocardial lipotoxicity in the future.