Regulation Of Cardiomiocite Autofagia By Pharmacological Ligands Of Peroxisomal Proliferators Activated Receptor (PPARγ)

Clinical studies showed that thiazolidinediones, drugs used for type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance treatment, can reduce cardiovascular morbid and mortality. These compounds are highly specific ligands of peroxisome proliferator-activator receptor gamma (PPARγ), a nuclear hormone receptor superf...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Valenzuela Bassi, Rodrigo Andrés
Tipo de recurso: tesis doctoral
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2011
País:Chile
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.anid.cl:10533/232913
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10533/232913
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Medicina y Ciencias de la Salud
Medicina Básica
Farmacología y Farmacia
Descripción
Sumario:Clinical studies showed that thiazolidinediones, drugs used for type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance treatment, can reduce cardiovascular morbid and mortality. These compounds are highly specific ligands of peroxisome proliferator-activator receptor gamma (PPARγ), a nuclear hormone receptor superfamily member. PPARs are variably expressed in the cardiovascular system and play an important role in both energetic metabolism regulation and inflammation response. In myocardial infarct, treatment with thiazolidinediones has cardioprotective effects reducing cardiac hypertrophy, infarcted area and inflammatory response. These data suggest an important role of PPARγ during cardiac remodeling. Remodeling is a physiopathological alteration in heart structure and function characterized by cardiomyocytes fibrosis, hypertrophy and death. Apoptosis has been described as the main cardiac cell death mechanism. However, recent studies have also described the participation of autophagy, also known as type II programmed cell death. Autophagy was first described as an adaptative physiological process during amino acids starvation. It has also been described its participation in cellular differentiation and development. Autophagy consists in the sequestration of cytoplasm portions and organelles within double membrane vesicles, named autophagosomes. These vesicles were subsequently fused with lysosomes forming the autofagosomes. All elements captured in these vesicles are degraded by lysosomal proteases and removed by exocytosis. Recent evidence has shown that PPARγ agonists could induce autophagy in some cells lines. However, is not clear whether autophagy is a mechanism for cell survival or death. Based on these antecedents we postulated the following hypothesis: “The pharmacological PPARγ agonist, rosiglitazone, induces cardiomyocyte autophagy protecting them from cell death”. The specific aims were: • To study in vitro the effects of PPARα and PPARγ pharmacological agonists on neonatal rat cardiomyocytes. • To determine whether rosiglitazone induces autophagy in cardiomyocyte and whether this process is related with cell viability. • To investigate if the stimulation with rosiglitazone affects cardiomyocyte viability when exposed to nutritional stress, hyperosmotic stress and simulated ischemia/reperfusion. The experimental models were primary cultures of neonatal rat cardiomyocytes treated with rosiglitazone at different concentrations and times. Autophagy was evaluated by endogenous LC3-I processing, and by change in adenoviral expressing GFP-LC3 distribution and degradation. Results showed that PPARγ is expressed and is transcriptionally active in neonatal rat cardiomyocytes as determined by western blot and activity of PPAR reporter plasmid. Furthermore, rosiglitazone stimulated early and progressively cardiac autophagy as determined by endogenous LC3-I processing. This effect was similar to that induced by rapamycin. Rosiglitazone also increased the GFP-LC3 punctuated pattern, but without decreasing GFP-LC3 fluorescence. On the other hand, rosiglitazone neither affects ATP levels nor viability of cardiomyocytes. Gemfibrozil treatment, also did not affect cardiomyocyte viability. To determine whether autophagy affects cardiomyocyte viability, cultured cells were exposed to hyperosmotic stress in the presence or absence of rosiglitazone or gemfobrozil, and viability was measured. Hyperosmotic stress induced a rapid decrease in cardiomyocyte viability. Cardiomyocyte death was also achieved by simulated ischemia/reperfusiom. Neither rosiglitazone nor gemfibrozil prevented cardiomyocyte death induced by both procedures. Hyperosmotic stress-induced cell death was characterized as apoptosis, as determined by mitochondrial potential decay and DNA fragmentation visualized by sub G1 population in propidium iodide-treated cells followed flow cytometry. Both rosiglitazone and gemfibrozil did not prevent the hyperosmotic stress-induced apoptosis. Finally, these results allow us to conclude that rosiglitazone induces cardiomyocyte autophagy but this process does not affect cardiomyocyte viability.