Significance of Abnormal Expression of ACE and ACE2 Gene in Rats After AMI and the Effect of Fosinopril on ACE and ACE2

Objective To study the changes of expression of ACE and ACE2 at mRNA level in infarction and non-infarction zone of left ventricule and to evaluate the effect of fosinopril on ACE and ACE2 expression after acute myocardial infarction(AMI) in rats.Methods AMI was established by ligation of the anterior descending coronary artery in female Spague-Dawly(SD) rats.Twenty-four hours after the procedure,the 24 surviving rats were grouped randomly as AMI group(n=8),fosinopfil treatmen tgroup(n=8),Sham operated rats were selected randomly to serve as non infarcted controls(n=8).4 weeks after treatment with the drugs by gastric gavage,the relative expression of myocardium ACE and ACE2 mRNA was assessed by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR).Results The mRNA expression of ACE and ACE2 in AMI group were significantly elevated compared with sham group(P0.01).The mRNA expression of ACE in fosinopril group was markedly attenuated compared with AMI group(P0.05),but increased compared with sham group(P0.05).In contrast,fosinopril had no effect on cardiac ACE2 mRNA,which remained elevated at the same levels in all areas of the AMI rat heart(P0.05).Conclusion The increase in ACE2 after AMI suggests that it plays an important role in the negative modulation of the renin angiotensin system in the generation and degradation of angiotensin peptides after cardiac injury.