Glycemic variability has been considered one of the predictors of diabetes complications in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM). In this work, we evaluated whether glycemic variability induces cardiac fibrosis through regulating cardiac fibroblast activation and macrophage polarization. Moreover, we determined whether glucose transporter sodium-glucose cotransporter 1 (SGLT1) plays an important role in this process. Glycemic variability-induced mice were established using DM mice (GVDM mice), and intermittent high-glucose (IHG) treatment was used to simulate glycemic variability in RAW264.7 macrophages and cardiac fibroblasts. The short hairpin RNA for SGLT1 was used to knock down SGLT1. The results showed that glycemic variability aggravated the cardiac fibrosis in GVDM mice. Additionally, glycemic variability promoted the expression of fibrogenic cytokine and the extracellular matrix proteins in left ventricular tissues and cardiac fibroblasts. GVDM mice showed a higher incidence of macrophage infiltration and M1 polarization in left ventricular tissues. Moreover, IHG-promoted RAW264.7 macrophages tended to differentiate to M1 phenotype. SGLT1 knockdown alleviated cardiac fibrosis in GVDM mice and inhibited activations of cardiac fibroblast and macrophage M1 polarization. Our results indicated that glycemic variability aggravates cardiac fibrosis through activating cardiac fibroblast and macrophage M1 polarization, which could be partially inhibited by SGLT1 knockdown.
Keywords: SGLT1; cardiac fibroblast; cardiac fibrosis; diabetes mellitus; glycemic variability; macrophage polarization.