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Departments of 1Anesthesiology, 2Division of Cardiovascular Diseases, Department of Medicine, and 3Pharmacology and Toxicology, the Medical College of Wisconsin and the Clement J. Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Milwaukee 53226; and the Department of Biomedical Engineering, 4Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201
Submitted 5 February 2004 ; accepted in final form 19 March 2004
| ABSTRACT |
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diabetes; hyperglycemia; myocardial infarction
A large body of experimental evidence accumulated over the past decade implicates ATP-regulated K+ (KATP) channels as central mediators of protection against reversible and irreversible ischemic injury. Activation of these channels is impaired by acute and chronic hyperglycemia (17, 21). Hyperglycemia is a major contributor to and an independent predictor of short- and long-term cardiovascular mortality in patients with and without diabetes mellitus (DM) (13). However, control of blood glucose (BG) concentration and the potentially deleterious consequences of hyperglycemia during administration of GIK have received relatively little attention. A study by Heng et al. (14) conducted before the advent of thrombolytic drugs demonstrated that patients with acute myocardial infarction who were treated with GIK suffered greater mortality than those who did not receive GIK. Notably, BG concentrations were very poorly controlled in the study by Heng et al. (14) and increased to levels as high as 600 mg/dl during the first 2 h of treatment in patients receiving GIK. A more recent study (22) conducted in patients undergoing off-pump coronary artery surgery demonstrated that GIK failed to reduce myocardial injury compared with placebo. This trial was subsequently discontinued after interim analysis revealed a possible increase in complication rate that may have been related to recalcitrant hyperglycemia in the GIK group. In the present investigation, we tested the hypothesis that GIK decreases myocardial infarct size (IS) in a canine model of coronary artery occlusion (CAO) when administered at reperfusion and that this beneficial effect requires activation of KATP channels. In addition, we tested the hypothesis that the presence of acute or chronic hyperglycemia before the onset of ischemia abolishes any beneficial effect afforded by GIK.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Acute surgical preparation. Implantation of instruments has been previously described (20). Briefly, barbiturate-anesthetized dogs (1822 kg) were ventilated using positive pressure after endotracheal intubation. Arterial blood gas tensions and acid-base status were maintained within physiological limits by adjustment of tidal volume and respiratory rate. A fluid-filled catheter was inserted into the right femoral vein and artery for drug administration and withdrawal of reference blood flow samples, respectively. After thoracotomy was performed in the left fifth intercostal space, a dual micromanometer-tipped catheter was inserted into the left ventricle (LV) and ascending aorta for measurement of LV and arterial pressures, respectively, and the maximum rate of increase of LV pressure (+dP/dtmax). A 1.5- to 2-cm segment of the proximal left anterior descending coronary artery distal to the first diagonal branch was isolated, and a silk ligature was placed around the vessel to produce CAO and reperfusion. A fluid-filled catheter was inserted into the left atrium for radioactive microsphere injection. Temperature was maintained with a heating blanket. Hemodynamic data were continuously monitored on a polygraph and simultaneously digitized by using a computer interfaced with an analog-to-digital converter.
Experimental protocol. All dogs were subjected to a 60-min CAO and 3 h of reperfusion (Fig. 1). Control dogs received an intravenous infusion of saline (1.5 ml·kg1·h1). The effects of GIK (25% dextrose; 50 IU insulin/l; 80 mM/l KCl infused intravenously at 1.5 ml·kg1·h1) (6) on IS were evaluated in two groups of dogs receiving GIK beginning 75 min before CAO (GIKCon) or 5 min before reperfusion (GIK reperfusion). Whether acute hyperglycemia modulated the actions of GIK was evaluated in three additional groups of dogs during infusion of 25% dextrose to increase BG to 300 or 600 mg/dl beginning 75 min before CAO (GIK300 or GIK600) or 5 min before reperfusion (GIK600 reperfusion). The impact of KATP channel activity on the protective effects of GIK was investigated in another group of dogs pretreated with glyburide (0.1 mg/kg, intravenously; Glb+GIK reperfusion) (20). Finally, the hypothesis that the presence of acute or chronic hyperglycemia abolishes the cardioprotection produced by GIK administered at reperfusion was examined in two separate groups of dogs, who received 25% dextrose to increase BG to 600 mg/dl beginning 75 min before CAO (Hyp+GIK reperfusion) or were subjected to chemically induced DM (DM+GIK reperfusion) (intravenous administration of 40 mg/kg alloxan and 25 mg/kg streptozotocin) (21).
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Quantification of regional myocardial blood flow. Regional myocardial blood flow was measured under baseline conditions, during CAO, and after 1 h of reperfusion using the radioactive microsphere technique as previously described (18). Myocardial blood flow was calculated as Qr·Cm·Cr1, where Qr is the rate of withdrawal of the reference blood flow sample (in ml/min), Cm is the activity (in cpm/g) of the myocardial tissue sample, and Cr is the activity (in cpm) of the reference blood flow sample. Transmural myocardial blood flow was calculated as the average of subepicardial, midmyocardial, and subendocardial blood flows.
Statistical analysis. Statistical analysis of data within and between groups was performed using ANOVA for repeated measures, followed by Student-Newman-Keuls test. A P value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. All data are expressed as means ± SE.
| RESULTS |
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Systemic hemodynamics. No differences in systemic hemodynamics were observed between groups under baseline conditions or during CAO and reperfusion (Table 1). Transient increases in LV +dP/dtmax were observed in dogs receiving GIK or dextrose alone before ischemia, but these increases were not sustained during CAO or after reperfusion.
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| DISCUSSION |
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Recent evidence has also suggested a potential link between insulin signaling and KATP channel activation. KATP channels are critical mediators of ischemic preconditioning, a phenomenon responsible for powerful protection against myocardial infarction (11) and apoptosis (1). KATP channel activity is modulated by several intracellular kinases, including protein kinase C, protein tyrosine kinase, mitogen-activated protein kinases (5, 14), and phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (30). Insulin has also been shown to regulate KATP channel activity (27, 29) by increasing the open-state probability of the channel and by decreasing channel sensitivity to ATP (28). Thus we hypothesized that insulin, administered as a component of GIK, produces cardioprotection by enhancing the activity of KATP channels. We further hypothesized that the presence of hyperglycemia negatively influences this process (17, 19, 21).
GIK requires KATP activation. The present results demonstrate for the first time that KATP channels mediate GIK-induced myocardial protection. The findings indicate that the nonselective KATP channel antagonist glyburide abolishes salvage of ischemic and reperfused myocardium by GIK. Glyburide blocks mitochondrial and sarcolemmal KATP channels that have both been identified to play roles during ischemic preconditioning, although the relative importance of each subcellular location of the channel remains somewhat controversial (12). The present results contrast with the findings of a previous report (4), suggesting that the selective mitochondrial KATP channel antagonist 5-hydroxydecanoate did not alter reductions in IS produced by a 5-min infusion of insulin 10 min before global ischemia in isolated rabbit hearts. Taken together, the present and previous data may implicate a role for the sarcolemmal KATP channel during cardioprotection with GIK. However, it is also possible that in the study of Baines et al. (4), 5-hydroxydecanoate administered during ischemia alone failed to block the beneficial effects of insulin because mitochondrial KATP channel blockade was not sustained throughout ischemia and reperfusion. The models chosen to evaluate the role of KATP channels during cardioprotection with GIK could also have influenced the results. We used intact, blood-perfused hearts with regional ischemia and reperfusion in anesthetized dogs, whereas Baines et al. (4) studied GIK in crystalloid perfused, globally ischemic, and reperfused isolated rabbit hearts.
Hyperglycemia modulates GIK. The protective effects of GIK administered immediately before reperfusion occurred independent of BG during the reperfusion period as GIK was equally protective (IS = 13 ± 2 and 12 ± 2% of AAR) in the presence of sevenfold differences in BG (78 ± 7 and 579 ± 20 mg/dl, respectively). The present findings support previous observations in rats demonstrating that GIK or insulin alone administered immediately before reperfusion reduced IS, but glucose or potassium alone did not (10). The beneficial effects of insulin also persisted when pyruvate was substituted for glucose in this model, suggesting that substrate-specific metabolism may not be responsible for insulin-dependent cardioprotection (16). Interestingly, our results demonstrate that the presence of acute or chronic hyperglycemia before ischemia completely abolished the protective effects of GIK on reperfusion. The mechanism for this effect is not entirely clear but may involve adverse modulation of KATP channels by glucose. We (17) have shown that acute hyperglycemia or DM impairs activation of mitochondrial KATP channels, and this action is dependent on both the severity of hyperglycemia and the dose of KATP channel agonist. Acute and chronic hyperglycemia blocks ischemic preconditioning (17, 19) and produces dose-related increases in myocardial IS (17). In contrast to our earlier findings, we did not observe hyperglycemia-induced increases in IS in the present study when exogenous insulin was also administered. Although IS was not reduced by insulin in the presence of preischemic moderate or severe hyperglycemia, insulin may have mitigated the deleterious effects of hyperglycemia that might otherwise have increased the extent of myocardial ischemic injury. The previous and present results support the contention that glucose, a known regulator of pancreatic KATP channels (2), impairs activation of myocardial KATP channels. Increasing glucose concentration within a physiological range from 3 to 6.5 mM is sufficient to close KATP channels within 13 min in pancreatic islet cells (23). This effect occurs concomitantly with increases in ATP concentration generated by oxidative substrate metabolism. Although the effects of glucose to regulate mitochondrial KATP channels have not been specifically investigated, it is likely that ATP generated from glucose metabolism also regulates channels in this organelle. Activation of KATP channels during ischemia appears to be required to elicit insulin-dependent cardioprotection on reperfusion. The finding that hyperglycemia, when present only during reperfusion, does not attenuate GIK cardioprotection was somewhat surprising and suggests that opening of KATP channels during ischemia may serve as an initial trigger for an effector that is subsequently modulated by insulin in a glucose-independent fashion. Candidates for such an effector may include mitogen-activated protein kinases, other downstream kinases, or nitric oxide, all components of signaling pathways that have previously been shown to be modulated by insulin or KATP channels (10, 12).
Beneficial effects of GIK occur at reperfusion. Clinical and experimental evidence indicates that the protective effects of insulin (as a component of GIK) occur predominantly during reperfusion (6, 10, 15, 16). The current results support this contention and demonstrate that GIK does not alter IS when administered before and during ischemia but substantially decreases injury when given immediately before reperfusion. The efficacy of GIK may be modulated under these conditions because of glucose-impaired KATP channel activation or due to metabolic effects of insulin and glucose. For example, preischemic glycogen depletion improves metabolic and contractile recovery in preconditioned rat hearts, and this effect may be related to decreased proton production from a reduction in hydrolysis of glycogen-derived ATP (25). Conversely, it has been suggested that administration of insulin and glucose before ischemia may increase glycogen stores and paradoxically increase the extent of ischemic damage, thus precluding any beneficial effect of insulin at reperfusion (16). The hypothesis that glycogen depletion is beneficial before ischemia and reperfusion is not supported by other evidence in the literature, however. Resynthesis of glycogen on reperfusion was correlated with the return of contractile function in isolated rat hearts subjected to global ischemia and reperfusion (7). Nonetheless, it was not our intention to characterize the complex metabolic effects of GIK but to explore the interrelationships among insulin, glucose, and KATP channels as modulators of ischemia and reperfusion injury during GIK.
Limitations and conclusions. The present results should be interpreted within the constraints of several potential limitations. The LV AAR for infarction and coronary collateral blood flow, important determinants of the extent of infarction, were similar between groups and do not account for the observed results. The dose of glyburide used in the present investigation did not affect IS in a previous study (18). The dose of GIK was based on the regimen demonstrated to be most efficacious in the Estudios Cardiologicos Latinoamerica GIK pilot clinical trial (6). Hyperglycemia produced by administration of dextrose before ischemia caused transient increases in LV +dP/dtmax, an index of global myocardial contractility that is a major determinant of myocardial oxygen consumption. The increase in LV +dP/dtmax, in hyperglycemic dogs before ischemia suggests that ischemic burden may have been greater in these experimental groups. However, there were no differences in LV +dP/dtmax among groups, and it is unlikely that differences in the determinants of myocardial oxygen consumption among groups were solely responsible for the observed findings. Nevertheless, myocardial oxygen consumption was not directly measured in the current investigation.
In summary, the present results confirm that GIK reduces myocardial IS when administered immediately before reperfusion in a canine model of prolonged coronary occlusion and reperfusion. This beneficial effect is dependent on opening of KATP channels during the ischemic period and is blocked by acute or chronic DM hyperglycemia before ischemia. The results reaffirm the temporal dependence of GIK administration and demonstrate for the first time that KATP channels mediate GIK-induced cardioprotection in vivo.
| GRANTS |
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| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| FOOTNOTES |
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The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. The article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
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