Cardiac gene expression in early and late-stage pre-clinical cancer cachexia.

Cancer cachexia is a multifactorial syndrome characterized by decreased food intake, unintentional muscle and body weight loss, psychosocial and physical challenges, cardiac atrophy, and decreased heart function. In this preclinical study, a colon-26 adenocarcinoma mouse model of cachexia was used to study cancer-associated cardiac gene expression at an early-stage and late-stage timepoint in cachexia development. Tissue weights and body weights were recorded and analyzed, and gene expression was investigated via RT-PCR at each timepoint to identify potential sex effects, tumor effects, and sex x tumor interactions. There was a significant increase in inflammation in mice with tumors at the early-stage timepoint. At the late-stage timepoint, autophagy proteolysis, fatty acid ß-oxidation, and inflammation genes were shown to be significantly altered in tumor-bearing mice. In conclusion, inflammation is shown to drive cancer cachexia related cardiomyopathy as severity progresses into a late-stage timepoint with altered metabolism.