Past and present course of cardioprotection against ischemia-reperfusion injury.
Despite tremendous advances in cardiovascular research and clinical therapy, ischemic heart disease remains the leading cause of serious morbidity and mortality in western society and is growing in developing countries. For the past 5 decades, many scientists have studied the pathophysiology of myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury leading to infarction. With the exception of reperfusion therapy, attempts to salvage the myocardium during an acute myocardial infarction showed disappointing results in directly decreasing infarct size. Nevertheless, the phenomena of ischemic preconditioning and ischemic postconditioning show a consistent and robust cardioprotective effect in every used experimental animal model. As a result, many studies have focused on the intracellular protective signaling pathways that are involved in preconditioning and postconditioning. More recently, it has been suggested that components of the reperfusion injury salvage kinases pathway, protein kinase B, and the extracellular signal-regulated kinases can induce cardioprotection against I/R injury when they are activated during the postischemic reperfusion period. In addition, inhibition of mitochondrial permeability transition during postischemic reperfusion also shows a strong cardioprotective effect against I/R injury. The present mini-review highlights a short summary of the historical and present course of research into cardioprotection against myocardial I/R injury.
Liem
David A
DA
Department of Physiology, Division of Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
Honda
Henry M
HM
Zhang
Jun
J
Woo
David
D
Ping
Peipei
P
D000818:Animals; D004734:Energy Metabolism; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D019157:Ischemic Preconditioning, Myocardial / Q000266:history; D008929:Mitochondria, Heart / Q000378:metabolism; D033681:Mitochondrial Membrane Transport Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D000083162:Mitochondrial Permeability Transition Pore; D015428:Myocardial Reperfusion Injury / Q000378:metabolism / Q000517:prevention & control*; D009206:Myocardium / Q000378:metabolism*; D017382:Reactive Oxygen Species / Q000378:metabolism; D015398:Signal Transduction
D033681:Mitochondrial Membrane Transport Proteins; D000083162:Mitochondrial Permeability Transition Pore; D017382:Reactive Oxygen Species