Pygo1 regulates pathological cardiac hypertrophy via a β-catenin-dependent mechanism

The role of Pygo1 in mammalian cardiac disease remains unelucidated. In this study, we found that Pygo1 is associated with human pathological hypertrophy. Cardiac-specific overexpression of Pygo1 in mice spontaneously led to cardiac hypertrophy, accompanied by declined cardiac function, increased heart weight/body weight and heart weight/tibial length ratios, and increased cell size. Meanwhile, cardiac function was improved when expression of Pygo1 interfered in hypertrophy-model mice. Our study is the first to present in vivo evidence demonstrating that Pygo1 regulates pathological cardiac hypertrophy in a canonical Wnt/β-catenin-dependent manner, which may provide new clues for a tissue-specific clinical treatment targeting this pathway.