Investigation of myocardial ischemic adaptation in the presence of comorbidity factors on in vitro cell culture models

Metabolic derangements, such as obesity or diabetes, are major risk factors of cardiovascular diseases. The healthy heart can adapt to a certain level of ischemic injury (e.g., during a heart attack), but metabolic diseases, such as hypercholesterolemia, have a negative effect of this ischemia-tolerance of the heart, and may increase the extent of injury afflicted by ischemia/reperfusion. The mechanism of the changes in the myocardium due to metabolic co-morbidities are not fully understood, more detailed information on them would enable the development of novel cardioprotective therapies, which would lead to a better prognosis of ischemic heart diseases. In our Department infarction is inflicted on anesthetized high fat diet-fed rats, as a model for hypercholesterolemia, in our state of the art small animal surgery facility (Figure 1) by a surgical procedure, where the left descending coronary artery is occluded by placing a suture around it for 30-45 min then released. During surgery, we monitor vital parameters (e.g., blood pressure, ECG, temperature, respiration; Figure 2). Our undergraduate researchers learn surgical techniques and are involved actively in our ongoing studies.

Learning opportunities:

• literature search methods,
• designing in vivo rat studies
• working with metabolic disease models in rats,
• animal handling, oral treatment of small animals,
• performing cardiac surgeries on rats,
• performing quantitative PCR and Western blots,
• data evaluation and presentation.

For further information or to register your interest please email pharmacology@semmelweis.hu