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Elevated DNase activity and caspase expression in association with apoptosis in failing ischemic sheep left ventricles
Author(s) -
Jiang Lele,
Huang Yifei,
Yuasa Takeshi,
Hunyor Stephen,
dos Remedios Cristobal G.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
electrophoresis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.666
H-Index - 158
eISSN - 1522-2683
pISSN - 0173-0835
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1522-2683(19990701)20:10<2046::aid-elps2046>3.0.co;2-c
Subject(s) - left ventricles , apoptosis , medicine , caspase , cardiology , caspase 3 , ejection fraction , biology , heart failure , endocrinology , ventricle , programmed cell death , biochemistry
We examined the DNase activity as well as the expression of the caspases in left ventricles of failing sheep hearts and compared it with samples from normal controls. The sheep model of chronic ischemic heart failure was developed by intracoronary microembolisation. Moderate heart failure was defined as a decrease of left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction (EF) to 35% or less and was stable for four weeks after the last embolisation. The failing hearts were harvested from these animals six months later. Bovine pancreas DNase I was used as a standard for the DNase zymograms. In normal sheep left ventricles, a low level of the DNase I‐like activity was detected (1.16 ± 0.17 pg/100 μg protein, n = 20), whereas it was elevated (3.64 ± 0.49 pg/100 μg, n = 32, p < 0.001) in the ischemic failing LV samples. The identity of the DNase in sheep is yet to be fully characterised. However, we also detected the expression of caspase‐2 and caspase‐3 by Western blotting. There was a 2.2‐fold increased expression of caspase‐2 p < 0.001= and a 2.6‐fold increased expression of caspase‐3 ( p < 0.001) in failing left ventricles compared to normal samples.