Nesfatin-1 protects against diabetic cardiomyopathy in the streptozotocin-induced diabetic mouse model via the p38-MAPK pathway.

Nesfatin-1 is a novel anorexigenic peptide that possesses antihyperglycemic and cardiovascular effects. We hypothesized that nesfatin-1 has a beneficial protective effect against diabetic cardiomyopathy (DC). We investigated the therapeutic effect of nesfatin-1 on diabetes-associated cardiac dysfunction in the high-fat diet (HFD)/streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic mouse model. We found that the cardiac nesfatin-1 level was lower in diabetic mice than in normal mice. Nesfatin-1 treatment (180 mg/kg/day for two weeks) improved insulin sensitivity and mitigated diabetic dyslipidemia. Nesfatin-1 ameliorated the diabetes-related myocardial hypertrophy and heart dysfunction, as revealed by the reduced hypertrophy index, heart rate, mean arterial pressure (MAP), creatine kinase (CK)-MB, and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) levels. Nesfatin-1 exerted antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity in diabetic mice, as shown by decreased reactive oxygen species (ROS), oxidative lipid product malondialdehyde (MDA) levels, increased superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione (GSH), decreased cardiac and plasma interleukin-1 ß (IL-1ß) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) levels. Mechanistically, we found that nesfatin-1 inhibited the cardiac p38-MAPK pathway activation and subsequent glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) level. Collectively, our data shows nesfatin-1 exerted protective effects against diabetic cardiomyopathy. Our study suggests that nesfatin-1 therapy has therapeutic implications against diabetic cardiomyopathy.

Simple transabdominal minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass surgery with right gastroepiploic artery.

For three patients with isolated right coronary artery disease who had drug resistance and were intolerant to interventional therapy, simple transabdominal small incision bypass grafting of the right gastroepiploic artery and the posterior descending branch of the right coronary artery was conducted without cardiopulmonary. All three patients were discharged smoothly without complications, and were followed up for three months, during which time the myocardial bridges were unobstructed and the cardiac functions were good. The surgery needs no thoracotomy and the injury is small, and avoids influences of sternum and pericardium adhesion on other cardiac surgery in the future. The risk of median sternotomy can be avoided for patients undergoing reoperation for coronary artery bypass surgery.

Plasma miR-1, miR-208, miR-499 as potential predictive biomarkers for acute myocardial infarction: An independent study of Han population.

BACKGROUND: It has been demonstrated that circulating muscle-enriched miR-1 and the cardiac-specific miR-208 and miR-499 might leak out of the necrotic myocardium and release into the circulation during the early stages of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). This study aims to investigate potential predictive value of the three miRNAs in AMI. METHODS: Plasma samples were taken from 70 AMI patients and 72 healthy controls. The expression levels of target miRNAs were measured by qRT-PCR. Student's t test and χ(2) test were applied to test the significance of the differences between AMI patients and controls. Additionally, a meta-analysis about the prediction accuracy of the three miRNAs in AMI was performed to summarize all the results from available studies. RESULTS: The expression of plasma miR-1, miR-208 and miR-499 were all significantly elevated in AMI patients compared with controls. By receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, plasma miR-1, miR-208 and miR-499 were demonstrated to be potential biomarkers for the prediction of AMI with AUC values of 0.81, 0.72, and 0.88, respectively. The meta-analysis consisted of nine studies for miR-1, eight studies for miR-208 and eight studies for miR-499. The summary estimates of miR-1, miR-208 and miR-499 were 0.73, 0.80 and 0.83 for sensitivity, 0.82, 0.95 and 0.90 for specificity, 0.84, 0.89 and 0.91 for AUC, respectively. CONCLUSION: In summary, we confirmed the predictive values of plasma miR-1, miR-208 and miR-499 in AMI. In contrast to miR-1, the cardiac-specific miR-208 and miR-499 were supposed to be more reliable as biomarkers in AMI screening and prediction.