Introduction:
Female hearts are less susceptible to myocardial injury following myocardial infarction (MI) and estrogen working through the nitric oxide (NO) pathway is thought to play a role. S-nitrosylation of cysteine thiols is a major signaling pathway through which NO exerts its action and mice with targeted deletion of S-nitrosoglutathione reductase (GSNOR), a denitrosylase that regulates S-nitrosylation, show increased levels of nitrosylated proteins. Male GSNOR
-/-
mice show a more favorable outcome after MI as compared to wild-type (WT), including reduced myocardial infarct size, improved ejection fraction and preserved left ventricular volumes. Whether female GSNOR
-/-
mice show gender-related cardiac protection following MI was not known and thus investigated.
Methods & Results:
MI was induced in male and female GSNOR
-/-
mice and their respective controls, C57Bl/6J, at 3-5 months via left anterior descending coronary artery occlusion. Serial echocardiography was performed prior to MI and after 1- and 4-weeks post-MI to assess ejection fraction (EF) and left ventricular volume both at diastole (end-diastolic volume, EDV) and systole (end-systolic volume, ESV). Compared to WT, GSNOR
-/-
males showed less dilation in both EDV (98.6 ± 9.3 mm vs. 140.6 ± 7.4 mm in WT, P<0.001) and ESV (73.1 ± 9.2 vs. 112.7 ± 7.3 mm in WT, P<0.05) at 4 weeks post-MI. Whereas, GSNOR
-/-
females showed greater dilation in both EDV (162.2 ± 13 vs. 83.8 ± 12 mm in WT, P<0.001) and ESV (141.8 ± 13 vs. 65.6 ± 12 mm in WT, P<0.001) as compared to WT females. EF decreased (P<0.001) in all groups post-MI, but at 4 weeks post-MI, it was significantly worse in GSNOR
-/-
females compared to GSNOR
-/-
males (14 ± 4% vs. 28 ± 3%, P<0.05).
Conclusion:
GSNOR
-/-
females exhibit significantly lower EF and greater dilation of left ventricular volumes both at diastole and systole following MI than any of the other groups suggesting that S-nitrosylation plays an important role in gender-related cardiac protection following myocardial injury. These findings suggest the importance of taking gender into account when exploring novel therapeutic treatments for myocardial injury.
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