To investigate the effect of heat shock pretreatment on apoptosis and mitochondrial metallothionein (MT) expression in rat cardiomyocytes. In vitro cultured H9C2 cells were randomly divided into three groups: control, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) injury, and H2O2 injury after heat shock pretreatment (n = 6 per group). Cardiomyocyte apoptosis and caspase-3 activity were assayed after treatment. Mitochondrial cytochrome (cyt) c and MT expression was assayed by Western blotting. Compared with the control group, the H2O2 injury group had a growing number of apoptotic cardiomyocytes (P < 0.01) and significantly elevated caspase-3 activity (P < 0.01) with markedly increased mitochondrial cyt c and MT expression (P < 0.01). After heat shock pretreatment, the numbers of apoptotic and necrotic cardiomyocytes (P < 0.01) and the caspase-3 activity significantly declined (P < 0.01), while mitochondrial cyt c and MT expression continued to increase (P < 0.01) compared with the H2O2 injury group. Heat shock pretreatment inhibits cardiomyocyte apoptosis, which may have a protective effect on cardiomyocytes by increasing the expression of myocardial protective MT and reducing the release of mitochondrial cyt c.
Keywords: Heat shock pretreatment; apoptosis; cardiomyocyte; cytochromec; metallothionein.