Role of glutaredoxin-1 in cardioprotection: An insight with Glrx1 transgenic and knockout animals

This study examined if glutaredoxin-1 (Glrx1), a redox-regulator of thioredoxin superfamily, plays any role in the redox signaling of ischemic myocardium. The hearts were subjected to 30 min of coronary occlusion followed by 24 h of reperfusion. Another group of hearts was rendered tolerant to ischemia (preconditioned, PC) by four cyclic episodes of 5 min ischemia each followed by another 10 min of reperfusion, which was then subjected to 30 min ischemia and 24 h of coronary occlusion. While ischemia/reperfusion had no effect on Glrx1 expression, adaptation to ischemia resulted in the up-regulation of Glrx1 expression, which was inhibited by cadmium, a known inhibitor of Glrx1. CdCl2 also abolished cardioprotection afforded by PC as evidenced by its ability to partially increase myocardial infarct size without affecting cardiomyocyte apoptosis. The amount of ROS was significantly decreased in the PC heart, which was abolished by CdCl2. The cardioprotective role of Glrx1was further confirmed with Glrx1 transgenic and knockout mice. The mouse hearts overexpressing Glrx1 exhibited significantly improved post-ischemic ventricular recovery and reduced myocardial infarct size while hearts deficient in Glrx1 exhibited depressed functional recovery and increased infarct size as compared to the wild-type hearts. Furthermore, Glrx1-overexpressing hearts exhibited reduced and Glrx1-deficient hearts exhibited increased ROS production during ischemia and reperfusion. Adapted hearts showed increased Akt phosphorylation that was inhibited by CdCl2. The amount of Bcl-2 protein expression was not affected by the inhibition of Glrx1. Taken together, the results of this study implicate a role of Glrx1 in cardioprotection and redox signaling of the ischemic myocardium.