Protein kinase C alpha early activates splicing factor SC-35 during post-natal rat heart development.

Rat myocardial fiber development and formation is a complex event which begins in the early stages of fetal life and continues until the end of the first month of life. In fact, a progressive morphological structure arrangement is observed until the 22nd day of life. These modifications are based onbiochemical events which are switched on at plasma membrane level and thentransduced into the nucleus. Since the presence of Protein Kinase C (PKC) inside the nucleus could allow the enzyme to phosphorylate also proteins located on chromatin, on nuclear matrix and speckles, in this study attention was paid to the role played by phospho-Protein Kinase C-alpha (p-PKCα) in regulating the activation of SC-35 splicing factor which leads to the occurrence of morphological modifications during post-natal rat heart development. Besides the parallel increase of the expression of both proteins up to 4/8 days of life, firstly p-PKCα and SC-35 co-localize at nuclear level at day 1 after birth, thus suggesting a main role of p-PKCα in modulating the early transcription of components related to post-natal rat heart development.