LAUSR

Autophagy including mitophagy serves as an important regulatory mechanism in the heart to maintain the cellular homeostasis and to protect against heart damages caused by myocardial infarction (MI). The current study aims to dissect roles of general autophagy and specific mitophagy in regulating cardiac function after MI. By using Beclin1+/−, Fundc1 knockout (KO) and Fundc1 transgenic (TG) mouse models, combined with starvation and MI models, we found that Fundc1 KO caused more severe mitochondrial and cardiac dysfunction damages than Beclin1+/− after MI. Interestingly, Beclin1+/− caused notable decrease of total autophagy without detectable change to mitophagy, and Fundc1 KO markedly suppressed mitophagy but did not change the total autophagy activity. In contrast, starvation increased total autophagy without changing mitophagy while Fundc1 TG elevated total autophagy and mitophagy in mouse hearts. As a result, Fundc1 TG provided much stronger protective effects than starvation after MI. Moreover, Beclin1+/−/Fundc1 TG showed increased total autophagy and mitophagy to a level comparable to Fundc1 TG per se, and completely reversed Beclin1+/−‐caused aggravation of mitochondrial and cardiac injury after MI. Our results reveal that mitophagy but not general autophagy contributes predominantly to the cardiac protective effect through regulating mitochondrial function.