Altered biogenesis of microRNA-1 is associated with cardiac dysfunction in aging of spontaneously hypertensive rats.

Currently we face the issues of aging-associated pathologies, particularly those leading to heart failure. With that in mind, in current research we focus on aging and hypertension combination as a widely spread threating problem. In a row with functional and morphological characterization of these aging- and hypertension-associated cardiac changes, we evaluate biogenesis of microRNA-1 being one of major microRNAs in the heart.

Heart-protective effect of n-3 PUFA demonstrated in a rat model of diabetic cardiomyopathy.

This study was designed to examine in vivo functional changes of the heart in the early stages of streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic cardiomyopathy and to evaluate the effects of n-3 PUFA intake. Moreover, we investigated whether modulation of diabetes-related abnormalities of myocardial connexin-43 (Cx43), β-myosin heavy chain (β-MHC), and β1-adrenergic receptors (β1-AR) might be implicated in the cardioprotective mechanism of n-3 PUFA. Our results showed significantly reduced cardiac output and ejection fraction (using the microtip pressure-volume catheter technique) as well as stroke volume and stroke work, 4 weeks after STZ-induced diabetes, with improvement of these parameters due to n-3 PUFA consumption.

Myocardial NOS activity and connexin-43 expression in untreated and omega-3 fatty acids-treated spontaneously hypertensive and hereditary hypertriglyceridemic rats.

The purpose of this study is to investigate myocardial nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activity and connexin-43 (Cx43) expression in young and old spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR), adult hereditary hypertriglyceridemic (HTG) rats, and age-matched healthy rats without and with omega-3 PUFA supplementation for 2 months. Results showed that comparing to healthy rats the myocardial NOS activity was significantly increased in young SHR (8.2 ± 1.