Effects of pretreatment with captopril on the infarct size and myocardial cell apoptosis in experimental rabbits / 中国病理生理杂志

ABSTRACT

AIM: To investigate the effects of pretreatment of captopril on the infarct size and myocardial cell apoptosis in rabbits. METHODS: Rabbits were randomly divided into sham-operated control group (SO), acute infarct group (AI) and captopril pretreatment group (CP). The rabbits of CP group were treated with captopril (25 mg?kg -1 .d -1 ) for 1 week before harvest. The left circumflex branch of coronary (LCX) was ligated to develop acute ischemic model. The systolic and diastolic function of left ventricle(LV) was measured before and at 15, 30, 60 min after ligating LCX, and the blood viscosity and hematocrit before and at 60 min after ligating LCX were measured also. 6 hours later LCX ligation, the hearts were harvested for determining the infarction size, which was expressed as the ratio of infarct area to the total ischemic area, and evaluating apoptosis index expressed as the percentage of myocardial cells with TUNEL positive staining. RESULTS: 1.Compared with AI group, captopril pretreatment significantly reduced the infarction size (16 60%?0.94% vs 36.24%?1.94%, P