Sphingosine protects aging hearts from ischemia/reperfusion injury: Superiority to sphingosine 1-phosphate and ischemic pre- and post-conditioning

• Published in: Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity Vol. 2; no. 3; pp. 146 - 151
• Main Authors: Vessey, Donald A, Kelley, Michael, Li, Luyi, Huang, Yong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Landes Bioscience 01.07.2009
• Subjects: Aging; Animals; In Vitro Techniques; Ischemic Preconditioning, Myocardial; Lysophospholipids - therapeutic use; Myocardial Infarction - physiopathology; Myocardial Infarction - prevention & control; Myocardial Reperfusion Injury - physiopathology; Myocardial Reperfusion Injury - prevention & control; Myocardial Reperfusion Injury - therapy; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-akt - metabolism; Rats; Recovery of Function; Research Papers; Sphingosine - analogs & derivatives; Sphingosine - therapeutic use; Ventricular Function, Left - drug effects; Ventricular Pressure; postconditioning; ischemia/reperfusion injury; cardioprotection; Akt; aging; sphingosine 1-phosphate; sphingosine; preconditioning
• ISSN: 1942-0900; 1942-0994
• DOI: 10.4161/oxim.2.3.8622

Aging hearts are known to have diminished capacity to be protected against reoxygenation ischemia/reperfusion (IR) injury provided by various cardioprotective regimens. In search of a more successful regimen, we have studied the response of aged hearts to preconditioning (PC) and postconditioning (POST) elicited by sphingosine or sphingosine 1-phosphate treatment.An ex vivo rat heart model was used to study the ability of PC and POST to protect old hearts (27 month) against I/R injury generated by 40 minutes (min) of index ischemia followed by 40 min of reperfusion. The response to ischemic PC was reduced in 27 month old hearts relative to 3-6 month (young) hearts as noted by a poor recovery of left ventricular developed pressure (LVDP) upon reperfusion (45% vs. 74% in young hearts) and a large infarct size after 40 min of reperfusion (37% versus 8% in young hearts). PC with sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) was also poor in old hearts yielding only 49% recovery of LVDP and a 27% infarct size. In contrast, PC with sphingosine was unaffected by aging; the 78% recovery of LVDP and 8% infarct size were not different from young hearts. Ischemic POST was less affected by aging than ischemic PC, but the old hearts still experienced infarct sizes of 28%. POST of old hearts with S1P was also associated with a substantial infarct size (24%). However, POST of old hearts with sphingosine was superior to the other forms of POST in that it reduced the infarct size to 12%. S1P levels were found to be lower in old hearts which may contribute to the decreased effectiveness of ischemic PC and POST. Further, phospho-Akt levels and distribution were altered in response to cardioprotection in the old hearts. In conclusion, POST was less affected by aging than PC; and sphingosine is a uniquely effective agent for both PC and POST of aging hearts.