title: Involvement of endoplasmic reticulum stress in myocardial apoptosis of streptozocin-induced diabetic rats.
abstract: Apoptosis plays critical role in diabetic cardiomyopathy and endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) is one of intrinsic apoptosis pathways. For previous studies have shown that endoplasmic reticulum become swell in diabetic myocardium and ERS was involved in diabetes mellitus and heart failure, this study aimed to demonstrate whether ERS was induced in myocardium of streptozocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats. We established type 1 diabetic rat model with STZ intraperitoneal injection, used echocardiographic evaluation, hematoxylin-eosin staining and the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated DNA nick-end labeling staining to identify the existence of diabetic cardiomyopathy and enhanced apoptosis in the diabetic heart. We performed immunohistochemistry, Western blot and real time PCR to analysis two hallmarks of ERS, glucose regulated protein78 (Grp78) and Caspase12. We found both Grp78 and Caspase12 had enhanced expression in protein and mRNA levels in diabetic myocardium than normal rat's, and Caspase12 was activated in diabetic heart. Those results suggested that ERS was induced in STZ-induced diabetic rats' myocardium, and ERS-associated apoptosis took part in the pathophysiology of diabetic cardiomyopathy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Remodeling and Function Research, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health, Jinan 250012, China.
authors.forename: Zhenhua
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Hongyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.forename: Guanghui
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Haibin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yingying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Zhiming
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ge