Background: Ischemic preconditioning (IPC) strongly protects against myocardial ischemia reperfusion (IR) injury. However, IPC protection is ineffective in aged hearts. Exercise training reduces the incidence of age-related cardiovascular disease and upregulates the ornithine decarboxylase (ODC)/polyamine pathway. The aim of this study was to investigate whether exercise can reestablish IPC protection in aged hearts and whether IPC protection is linked to restoration of the cardiac polyamine pool.
Methods: Rats aging 3 or 18 months perform treadmill exercises with or without gradient respectively for 6 weeks. Isolated hearts and isolated cardiomyocytes were exposed to an IR and IPC protocol.
Results: IPC induced an increase in myocardial polyamines by regulating ODC and spermidine/spermine acetyltransferase (SSAT) in young rat hearts, but IPC did not affect polyamine metabolism in aged hearts. Exercise training inhibited the loss of preconditioning protection and restored the polyamine pool by activating ODC and inhibiting SSAT in aged hearts. An ODC inhibitor, α-difluoromethylornithine, abolished the recovery of preconditioning protection mediated by exercise. Moreover, polyamines improved age-associated mitochondrial dysfunction in vitro.
Conclusion: Exercise appears to restore preconditioning protection in aged rat hearts, possibly due to an increase in intracellular polyamines and an improvement in mitochondrial function in response to a preconditioning stimulus.