Diabetic heart disease morbidity and mortality is escalating. No specific therapeutics exist and mechanistic understanding of diabetic cardiomyopathy etiology is lacking. While lipid accumulation is a recognized cardiomyocyte phenotype of diabetes, less is known about glycolytic fuel handling and storage. Based on in vitro studies, we postulated the operation of an autophagy pathway in the myocardium specific for glycogen homeostasis – glycophagy. Here we visualize occurrence of cardiac glycophagy and show that the diabetic myocardium is characterized by marked glycogen elevation and altered cardiomyocyte glycogen localization. We establish that cardiac glycophagy flux is disturbed in diabetes. Glycophagy may represent a potential therapeutic target for alleviating the myocardial impacts of metabolic disruption in diabetic heart disease.

中文翻译：

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心肌糖吞噬通量失调和糖原积累是糖尿病心肌病的特征

糖尿病心脏病的发病率和死亡率正在上升。不存在具体的治疗方法，并且缺乏对糖尿病心肌病病因学的机制了解。虽然脂质积累是公认的糖尿病心肌细胞表型，但人们对糖酵解燃料的处理和储存知之甚少。基于体外研究，我们假设心肌中糖原稳态特异的自噬途径的运作——糖自噬。在这里，我们可视化心脏噬糖的发生，并表明糖尿病心肌的特征是糖原显着升高和心肌细胞糖原定位改变。我们确定糖尿病患者的心脏糖吞噬通量受到干扰。糖吞噬可能是减轻糖尿病心脏病代谢紊乱对心肌影响的潜在治疗靶点。