In this study, the activity of the novel compound, 6-methoxy-2-salicylaldehyde nicotinoyl hydrazone (SNH6), was assessed in vivo using the well-characterized muscle creatine kinase (MCK) conditional frataxin knockout (KO) mouse model of Friedreich's ataxia (FA). The design of SNH6 incorporated a dual-mechanism mediating: (1) NAD+-supplementation to restore cardiac bioenergetics; and (2) iron chelation to remove toxic mitochondrial iron. In these studies, MCK wild-type (WT) and KO mice were treated for 4-weeks from the asymptomatic age of 4.5-weeks to 8.5-weeks of age, where the mouse displays an overt cardiomyopathy. SNH6-treatment significantly elevated NAD+ and markedly increased NAD+ consumption in WT and KO hearts. In SNH6-treated KO mice, nuclear Sirt1 activity was also significantly increased together with the NAD+-metabolic product, nicotinamide (NAM). Therefore, NAD+-supplementation by SNH6 aided mitochondrial function and cardiac bioenergetics. SNH6 also chelated iron in cultured cardiac cells and also removed iron-loading in vivo from the MCK KO heart. Despite its dual beneficial properties of supplementing NAD+ and chelating iron, SNH6 did not mitigate cardiomyopathy development in the MCK KO mouse. Collectively, SNH6 is an innovative therapeutic with marked pharmacological efficacy, which successfully enhanced cardiac NAD+ and nuclear Sirt1 activity and reduced cardiac iron-loading in MCK KO mice. No other pharmaceutical yet designed exhibits both these effective pharmacological properties.
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