Induction of cardiac FABP gene expression by long chain fatty acids in cultured rat muscle cells.

The induction of cardiac FABP expression by long-chain fatty acids was measured in cultured rat myoblasts, myotubes and adult cardiomyocytes. With quantitative RT-PCR techniques, the primary transcription product of the FABP gene and the mature mRNA were measured. Incubations of 30 min resulted in a larger than 2-fold increase of the primary transcript in all cells, and FABP mRNA more than doubled in myoblasts and cardiomyocytes after 10 h of fatty acid exposure. The results demonstrate that long chain fatty acids induce the expression of the cardiac FABP gene in muscle cells and their undifferentiated precursors at the level of transcription initiation, suggesting that all factors involved in fatty acid dependent gene induction are already present in myoblasts. Thus, myoblast cell lines should be useful for the characterization of fatty acid response elements that control the expression of the FABP gene.