Apoptosis of cardiomyocytes limits the contractile efficiency of the heart during sepsis. Prosurvival autophagy has been proposed as a novel mechanism to maintain normal heart function. Here, we demonstrated that autophagy was activated in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-treated HL-1 cells, and it counteracted the LPS-induced apoptosis. We investigated further the mechanism by which LPS triggered autophagy in HL-1 cells. We discovered that endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress played an important role in LPS-triggered autophagy. The ER activated a survival pathway through the ER-localized transmembrane protein PERK, which was essential for LPS-induced autophagy. Lipopolysaccharide increased expression of GRP78, phosphorylated PERK and phosphorylated eukaryotic initiation factor 2α. Similar results were observed after administration of tunicamycin, a well-known ER stressor. Most importantly, we found that 4-phenylbutyrate, an inhibitor of ER stress, suppressed LPS-activated autophagy in the presence of LPS in HL-1 cells. The same results were observed after small interfering RNA-mediated silencing of PERK protein. We also noticed that LPS-induced apoptosis appeared early, at 4 h. Our findings revealed that PERK, one arm of ER stress, facilitated survival of LPS-treated HL-1 cells by promoting autophagy, and could serve as a potential therapeutic strategy to alleviate septic myocardial dysfunction.
© 2014 The Authors. Experimental Physiology © 2014 The Physiological Society.