Original Article

Effects of phytoestrogen genistein on myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury and apoptosis in rabbits

En-sheng JI, Hua YUE, Yu-ming WU, Rui-rong HE

Abstract

AIM:
To study the effect of genistein (GST) on rabbit heart ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury.
METHODS:
Rabbit heart I/R injury was induced by occluding the left anterior descending coronary artery for 45 min and reperfusing for 180 min. GST (1.0 mg/kg) was intravenously injected 5 min before heart ischemia. Hemodynamic data, infarct size, and cardiomyocytic apoptosis were measured. The pathologic changes of I/R myocardium were observed.
RESULTS:
During the I/R, heart rate, mean arterial blood pressure, myocardial oxygen consumption, left ventricular (LV) -dp/dtmax and +dp/dtmax were decreased progressively. The infarct size was occupied 60.23 %+/-3.97 % (% of area at risk) in vehicle +I/R group while GST reduced the infarct size to 39.62 %+/-4.30 % (P<0.01). DNA ladder pattern in myocardium was revealed by agarose gel electrophoresis in vehicle +I/R group while was not found in GST+I/R group. Apoptotic cardiomyocytes were sparse within ischemic myocardium at risk in GST+I/R group as compared with that in vehicle +I/R group (TUNEL stain). Apoptosis rate in ischemic myocardium from vehicle +I/R and GST+I/R groups detected by flow cytometry were 15.33 %+/-1.31 % and 3.88 %+/-0.33 %, respectively. Fas and Bax protein expressions in ischemic myocardium of vehicle +I/R group were higher than that in GST+I/R group (P<0.01). Bcl-2/Bax ratio in vehicle +I/R group was lower than that in nonischemic myocardium (P<0.01), while in GST+I/R group, the Bcl-2/Bax ratio was higher than that in vehicle +I/R group (P<0.01).
CONCLUSION:
GST reduced infarct size and apoptosis of myocytes in I/R rabbit heart.
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