Potent adenylate cyclase agonist forskolin restores myoprotective effects of
ischemic preconditioning in rat hearts after myocardial infarction.
Mieno S, Horimoto H, Watanabe F, Nakai Y, Furuya E, Sasaki S.
Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Osaka Medical College,
Takatsuki, Japan.
BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to determine whether ischemic
preconditioning (IPC) provides myoprotective effects in post-myocardial
infarction (MI) hearts, and whether beta adrenergic signaling is involved in IPC.
METHODS: Rats were subjected to either ligation of the left anterior descending
coronary artery (LAD) resulting in MI, or a sham operation. Two weeks later,
hearts were isolated and perfused. Six groups (n = 7 each) were studied: group
1, control (sham operation); group 2, sham operation + IPC; group 3, post-MI;
group 4, post-MI + IPC; group 5, post-MI + forskolin; group 6, post-MI +
forskolin + IPC. IPC consisted of two cycles of 5 minutes of global ischemia.
The adenylate cyclase agonist forskolin (1.0 x 10(-5) M) was administered in
post-MI hearts either alone (group 5) or for 5 minutes before IPC (group 6). All
hearts were then subjected to 20 minutes of global ischemia followed by 120
minutes of reperfusion, after which infarct size was measured. Concentrations of
endogenous catecholamines and myocardial mRNA expression of beta 2 adrenergic
receptor were measured in the post-MI model. RESULTS: (1) IPC reduced infarct
size in shams, from 34.7 +/- 5.2% in group 1 to 21.4 +/- 3.8% in group 2, but
did not affect infarct size in post-MI hearts (group 3 versus group 4). (2)
Forskolin combined with IPC reduced infarct size in post-MI hearts to 29.3 +/-
3.4% (group 6), but not in group 5 where the value was 39.3 +/- 4.8%. (3) Beta 2
adrenergic receptor mRNA expression in post-MI hearts was significantly
decreased as compared with sham-operated animals. CONCLUSIONS: The results
indicate that downregulation of beta adrenergic receptors in post-MI hearts may
be associated with ineffectiveness of IPC, and that beta adrenergic signaling,
especially in relation to adenylate cyclase activation, may be required to
generate the IPC response in post-MI hearts.