Study of Atorvastatin on TRAIL expression in myocardiocytes and apoptosis in the rat with acute myocardial infarction

Objective: To observe the effect of atorvastatin on TRAIL expression in the myocardiocytes and apoptosis in the rats with acute myocardial infarction(AMI) and the possible role of TRAIL in cardiovascular disease.Methods: The rats with AMI were estab-lished by ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery.Male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into three groups: the sham group;the untreated MI group;the group treated with Atorvastatin 10 mg·kg-1·d-1.The level of lipid was analyzed by automatic biochemi-cal analyzer,infarction size was determined by histomorphometric analysis,the expression of TRAIL,Bax and Bcl-2 in the myocardium was measured with real time RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry,myocardiocytes apoptosis was determined with TUNEL stain.Results: The number of apoptotic cells was significantly increased in the MI group to compare the sham group and atorvastatin markedly inhibited apoptosis in the myocardium after MI(P 0.01),the level of Bcl-2/Bax was down-regulated in the MI group to compare the sham group and signifi-cantly up-regulated in the group treated with Atorvastatin(P 0.05),the level of TRAIL protein and gene expression was significantly decreased in the MI group to compare the sham group and markedly increased in the group treated with Atorvastatin(P 0.01).Conclusion: Atorvastatin increases the expression of TRAIL in the myocardium in the rats with acute myocardial infarction.the possible role of TRAIL may participate in the anti-apoptosis of atorvastatin in the myocardium.