Cardiovascular Research Advance Access [Accepted Manuscript] published online on July 6, 2009
Cardiovascular Research, doi:10.1093/cvr/cvp232
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MicroRNA-1 downregulation by propranolol in a rat model of myocardial infarction: a new mechanism for ischemic cardioprotection
1 Department of Pharmacology (State-Province Key Laboratories of Biomedicine and Pharmaceutics)
2 Institute of Cardiovascular Research, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150081, P. R. China
Correspondence to: Baofeng Yang, Department of Pharmacology (State-Province Key Laboratories of Biomedicine and Pharmaceutics), Harbin Medical University, Heilongjiang 150081, P. R. China. Phone: 86-451-86671354; Fax: 86-451-86675769, E-mail: yangbf{at}ems.hrbmu.edu.cn
Aims: The present study was designed to investigate whether the beneficial effects of beta-blocker propranolol are related to regulation of microRNA miR-1.
Methods and results: We demonstrated that propranolol reduced the incidence of arrhythmias in a rat model of myocardial infarction (MI) by coronary artery occlusion. Overexpression of miR-1 was observed in ischemic myocardium and strikingly, administration of propranolol reversed the up-regulation of miR-1 nearly back to the control level. In agreement with its miR-1-reducing effect, propranolol relieved myocardial injuries during ischemia, restored the membrane depolarization and cardiac conduction slowing, by rescuing the expression of inward rectifying K+ channel subunit Kir2.1 and gap junction channel connexin 43. Our results further revealed that the beta-adrenoceptor–cAMP–Protein Kinase A (PKA) signaling pathway contributed to the expression of miR-1, and serum response factor (SRF), which is known as one of the transcriptional enhancers of miR-1, was up-regulated in ischemic myocardium. Moreover, propranolol inhibited the beta-adrenoceptor–cAMP–PKA signaling pathway and suppressed SRF expression.
Conclusions: We conclude that the beta-adrenergic pathway can stimulate expression of arrhythmogenic miR-1, contributing to ischemic arrhythmogenesis, and beta-blockers produce their beneficial effects partially by down-regulating miR-1, which might be a novel strategy for ischemic cardioprotection.
Time for primary review: 38 Days
Yanjie Lu, Yong Zhang and Hongli Shan contributed equally to this work.