Postconditioning can reduce ischemia-reperfusion (I/R)-induced cardiomyocyte apoptosis by targeting mitochondria. p53 upregulated modulator of apoptosis (PUMA) is involved in lethal I/R injury. Here, we hypothesized that postconditioning might inhibit mitochondrial pathway-mediated cardiomyocyte apoptosis by controlling PUMA expression. The cultured neonatal rat cardiomyocytes underwent 3 h of hypoxia and 3 h of reoxygenation. Postconditioning consisted of three cycles of 5 min reoxygenation and 5 min hypoxia after prolonged hypoxia. Hypoxic postconditioning reduced the levels of PUMA mRNA and protein. Concomitantly, the loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, cytochrome c release and caspase-3 activation were decreased significantly by postconditioning. Overexpression of PUMA increased greatly not only the number of apoptotic cardiomyocytes, but also the collapse of mitochondrial membrane potential, cytochrome c release and caspase-3 activation under postconditioning condition. The data suggest that reduction of PUMA expression mediates the endogenous cardioprotective mechanisms of postconditioning by disrupting mitochondrial apoptotic pathway.
YuZhen Li, Qi Guo, XiuHua Liu, Chen Wang, DanDan Song. PUMA-mediated mitochondrial apoptotic disruption by hypoxic postconditioning. Apoptosis : an international journal on programmed cell death. 2015 Aug;20(8):1026-32
PMID: 26043893
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