RESUMO
Ischemic heart diseases have emerged as great threats to human health. Nowadays, restoration of cardiac blood flow supply is widely regarded as a feasible treatment choice for ischemic heart diseases; however, this intervention would contradictorily elicit reperfusion injury. Recently, myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury (MI/RI) has aroused widespread public concerns. Remifentanil, an ultra-short acting opioid analgesic, is frequently used for surgical anesthesia. Previous studies have demonstrated the cardioprotective effects of remifentanil preconditioning in clinical practice and in vitro experimental models; however, its exact mechanisms remain largely unclear. This study aimed to further evaluate the protective effects of remifentanil preconditioning against MI/RI and elucidate the potential molecular mechanisms. Rat models of MI/RI were successfully established via ligation of left anterior descending coronary artery for 30 minutes and restoration of blood flow for 2 hours. Herein, animal experiments displayed that remifentanil preconditioning could alleviate myocardial damage in rat models of MI/RI. Consistently, cell model experiments implied that remifentanil preconditioning attenuated hypoxia/reoxygenation exposure-induced injury in rat cardiomyocytes. Moreover, our findings verified the involvement of Notch signaling pathway in the protective effects of remifentanil preconditioning. In addition, mechanistic studies revealed that remifentanil preconditioning could up-regulate Jagged-1 expression and that Jagged-1 mediated the cardioprotective effects of remifentanil preconditioning through activating Notch signaling pathway. Taken together, our data indicate that remifentanil preconditioning ameliorates myocardial damage in rat MI/RI models via Jagged-1-mediated Notch signaling pathway activation. Thus, this study may offer some novel clues for understanding the cardioprotective mechanisms of remifentanil preconditioning against MI/RI.
