Effect Of Hypoxic Preconditioning Research Articles

Hypoxic preconditioning in isolated rat hearts: non-involvement of activation of adenosine A1 receptor, Gi protein, and ATP-sensitive K+ channel.

Activation of the adenosine A1(A1) receptor, Gi protein, and ATP-sensitive K+ (KATP)-channel system has been shown to play an important role in the cardioprotective effects of ischemic preconditioning in dogs. The present study was undertaken to elucidate the possible involvement of this system in hypoxic preconditioning, which ameliorates injury induced by prolonged ischemia and subsequent reperfusion in perfused rat hearts. Ten minutes of hypoxic preconditioning resulted in an appreciable improvement of post-ischemic cardiac contractile recovery. This was associated with a significant reduction in the release of creatine kinase (CK) from reperfused hearts. Hypoxic preconditioning shortened the time to ischemic contracture onset and prevented a further rise in left ventricular end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP) during reperfusion. Neither the selective A1 receptor antagonist, 8-cyclopentyltheophylline (CPT) nor the KATP channel blocker, glibenclamide, altered the beneficial effects of hypoxic preconditioning. In vivo pretreatment with an inhibitor of Gi protein, pertussis toxin (PTX), also did not diminish the preconditioning effect. The results suggest that, although hypoxic preperfusion ameliorates post-ischemic contractile dysfunction, neither the activation of the A1 receptor, nor the opening of the KATP-channel, nor transduction through Gi protein are involved in the post-ischemic functional recovery of hypoxic preconditioning in the perfused rat heart.

Cardioprotection in an In Vitro model of Hypoxic Preconditioning

Short periods of myocardial ischemia appear to provide protection against subsequent prolonged ischemic episodes in experimental animals and in man. This phenomenon, known as ischemic preconditioning, has not yet been characterized at the cellular or molecular levels; however, tissue hypoxia appears to be required. In this study, we used a previously developed method for hypoxic cardiac myocyte culture in order to establish a model for ischemic (or hypoxic) preconditioning in cell culture. We demonstrate that cultured neonatal rat cardiac myocytes preconditioned by 25 min of exposure to hypoxia followed by reoxygenation were protected against membrane damage for up to 6 h of prolonged severe hypoxia, as determined by arachidonic acid release and contractile recovery. In contrast, non-preconditioned myocytes exhibited significant hypoxic damage after 2-4 h. Pretreatment of cells with PMA, a tumor-promoting phorbol ester, mimicked the protective effects of hypoxic preconditioning; pretreatment with the muscarinic cholinergic agonist carbachol had no effect. Our data suggests that isolated myocytes in culture remain competent to be preconditioned by hypoxia, through a pathway that may involve the activation of protein kinase C.