Mechanical stretch induces mitochondria-dependent apoptosis in neonatal rat cardiomyocytes and G_(2)/M accumulation in cardiac fibroblasts

Heart remodeling is associated with the loss of cardiomyocytes and increase of fibrous tissue owing to abnormal mechanical load in a number of heart disease conditions. In present study,a well-described in vitro sustained stretch model was employed to study mechanical stretch-induced responses in both neonatal cardiomyocytes and cardiac fibroblasts. Cardiomyocytes,but not cardiac fibroblasts,underwent mitochondria-dependent apoptosis as evidenced by cytochrome c (cyto c) and Smac/DIABLO release from mitochondria into cytosol accompanied by mitochondrial membrane potential (△ψm) reduction,indicative of mitochondrial permeability transition pore (PTP)opening. Cyclosporin A,an inhibitor of PTP,inhibited stretch-induced cyto c release,△ψm reduction and apoptosis,suggesting an important role of mitochondrial PTP in stretch-induced apoptosis. The stretch also resulted in increased expression of the pro-apoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins,including Bax and Bad,in cardiomyocytes,but not in fibroblasts. Bax was accumulated in mitochondria following stretch. Cell permeable Bid-BH3 peptide could induce and facilitate stretch-induced apoptosis and △ψm reduction in cardiomyocytes. These results suggest that Bcl-2 family proteins play an important role in coupling stretch signaling to mitochondrial death machinery,probably by targeting to PTP. Interestingly,the levels of p53 were increased at 12 h after stretch although we observed that Bax upregulation and apoptosis occurred as early as 1 h. Adenovirus delivered dominant negative p53 blocked Bax upregulation in cardiomyocytes but showed partial effect on preventing stretch-induced apoptosis,suggesting that p53 was only partially involved in mediating stretch-induced apoptosis. Furthermore,we showed that p21 was upregulated and cyclin B l was downregulated only in cardiac fibroblasts,which may be associated with G2/M accumulation in response to mechanical stretch.

The role of Akt on Arsenic trioxide suppression of 3T3-L1 preadipocyte dif-ferentiation

The present study investigates the molecular details of how arsenic trioxide inhibits preadipocyte differentiation and examines the role of Akt/PKB in regulation of differentiation and apoptosis. Continual exposure of arsenic trioxide, at the clinic achievable dosage that does not induce apoptosis, suppressed 3T3-L1 cell differentiation into fat cells by inhibiting the expression of PPARγ and C/EBPα and disrupting the interaction between PPARγ and RXRα, which determines the programming of the adipogenic genes. Interestingly, if we treated the cells for 12 or 24 h and then withdrew arsenic trioxide, the cells were able to differentiate to the comparable levels of untreated cells as assayed by the activity of GAPDH, the biochemical marker of preadipocyte differentiation. Long term treatment blocked the differentiation and the activity of GAPDH could not recover to the comparable levels of untreated cells. Continual exposure of arsenic trioxide caused accumulation in G2/M phase and the accumulation of p21. We found that arsenic trioxide induced the expression and the phosphorylation of Akt/PKB and it inhibited the interaction between Akt/PKB and PPARγ . Akt/PKB inhibitor appears to block the arsenic trioxide suppression of differentiation. Our results suggested that Akt/PKB may play a role in suppression of apoptosis and negatively regulate preadipocyte differentiation.

Inhibition of the activating signals in NK92 cells by recombinant GST-sHLAG1α chain

The soluble HLA-G1 (sHLA-G1) isoform was found to be secreted by trophoblast cells at the materno-fetal interface,which suggests that it may act as an immunomodulator during pregnancy. In this paper, we reported that GST-sHLA-G1α chain could bind to its receptor ILT-2 on NK92 cells and then the latter recruited Src homology 2 domaincontaining tyrosine phosphatase-1 (SHP-1), which consequently dephosphorylated some important protein tyrosine kinases and blocked the activation of downstream molecules such as MEK and ERK so that the cytotoxicity of natural killer (NK) cells was inhibited. These results indicated that GST-sHLA-G1α chain might be exploited in new immunotherapy strategies aiming at inducing immunotolerance during allograft, xenograft and autoimmune situations. In addition,we found that modification of O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) was involved in NK cells' activating and inhibitory signals. This may provide a novel molecular target for inducing immunotolerance but needs further study.

Protection of phosphatidylcholine to photosystemⅡmembrane during heat treatment

Photosystem Ⅱ membrane was reconstituted with phosphatidylcholine (PC) with different kinds of fatty acyl chains and the protection of PC to photosystem Ⅱ (PSⅡ) membrane during heat treatment was investigated using oxygen electrode, variable fluorescence and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy. Heat treatment decreased the oxygen evolution rate and the F′v/Fm′ ratio of PSⅡ membrane and influenced CD spectra of PSⅡ membrane, but PC inhibited the effect of heat treatment on the oxygen evolution rate, the F′v/F′m ratio and CD spectra of PSⅡ membrane. The results indicate that PC can protect PSⅡ membrane against heat treatment and the alterations in the unsaturated fatty acid extent in PC can cause the changes of the protection ability.