Acetaminophen used at therapeutic dosage causes significant changes in signaling pathways in mouse hearts
Authors: Rivera Gabriela , Vaidya Tanishq , McGinley Tim , Odulio Cassie , Edwards Daisaku , Gomes Aldrin 
Published: May 2024

Acetaminophen (APAP) is a common over-the-counter medication that is used to treat pain and fever. It can be taken orally, topically, or intravenously and is considered a safe and effective drug when taken at therapeutic doses for a short amount of time. However, recent research suggests that APAP taken regularly can result in increased blood pressure, resulting in increased cardiovascular risk. Previous publications found that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) resulted in increased Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) in cardiomyocytes, resulting in cardiac dysfunction. Although APAP is not an NSAID, it is likely that APAP has similar effects. Our hypothesis is that regular usage of APAP increases ROS levels, leading to potential dysfunction in hearts and other organs. We treated five 6-month-old female mice with either water or acetaminophen dissolved in water for seven days. The concentration of acetaminophen that mice were given was 103 mg/kg/day, which is equivalent to a daily 500 mg dosage of acetaminophen in humans. The heart samples from these mice were homogenized in urea lysis buffer and then centrifuged to separate the supernatant from the pellet. After discarding the pellet, the proteins in the supernatant were discarded, and the pellet was treated with acetone overnight to allow the protein to precipitate. The supernatant was discarded, and the pellet was kept and denatured with tris(2-carboxyethyl) phosphine (TCEP) while incubating in a 55ºC dry bath, iodoacetamide was added to prevent disulfide bonds from forming, and acetone was added to the supernatant and left overnight to make proteins precipitate. After precipitation, the sample was centrifuged again to separate the supernatant from the pellet, and the pellet was saved while the supernatant was discarded. The pellet was resuspended and Tandem Mass Tags (TMT) label reagents were added to the samples, the samples quenched, and then combined and analyzed using mass spectroscopy (MS) after fractionating the samples using a Pierce High pH Reverse-Phase Peptide Fractionation kit (Thermofisher), then separated and eluted in liquid chromatography (LC) to determine any changes in the protein. LC/MS/MS data underwent a power analysis and Sequest-HT to compare samples to all mouse sequences. Target Decoy PSM was used to analyze and exclude decoy sequences from the samples, and Scaffold Q+ was used to quantify the peptides and proteins identified from the MS and LC data. Pathway analysis of the significant protein expression changes suggests antioxidant pathways, the ubiquitin-proteasome system, fatty acid oxidation, oxidative phosphorylation, and de novo purine synthesis and degradation. Proteasome assays were also conducted for the β5, β2, and β1 proteolytic subunits. There was a significant decrease in the β5 chymotrypsin-like activity in the hearts of APAP-treated mice compared to the control mice and no significant change in the β2 and β1 proteasome activity. Overall, these results show that mice treated with a therapeutic dosage of APAP regularly over the course of a week exhibited increased stress in the heart. NIEHS/Superfund Research Program (P42 ES004699). This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.