Changes in Autophagy Levels in Rat Myocardium During Exercise Preconditioning-Initiated Cardioprotective Effects

The role of autophagy in the cardioprotection conferred by ischemic preconditioning (IPC) has been well described. This study aimed to investigate the changes in autophagy levels during the cardioprotective effects initiated by exercise preconditioning (EP).Rats were randomly divided into 4 groups: group C (control), group EP, group EE (exhaustive exercise), and group EP + EE (EP pretreatment at 0.5 hours before EE). The EP protocol included 4 periods of 10 minutes of treadmill running each at 30 m/minute with intervening 10 minute periods of rest. Hematoxylin-basic fuchsin-picric acid (HBFP) staining and plasma levels of cardiac troponin I (cTnI) were used to evaluate the ischemia-hypoxia injury in rat myocardium. Alteration levels in several autophagy proteins in the left ventricular myocardium were analyzed by Western blot. The phasic alterations of autophagy levels during EP-initiated cardioprotective phase were also examined.Compared with group C, the ischemia-hypoxia positive areas and IOD value in HBFP-staining and cTnI plasma levels increased significantly in group EE. Compared with group EE, the ischemia-hypoxia injury was markedly attenuated in group EP + EE. Compared with group C, the LC3-II/LC3-I ratio, a marker of autophagosome formation, was reduced in group EE, but the LC3-II/LC3-I ratio remained unaltered in group EP + EE. Furthermore, the LC3-II/LC3-I ratio increased significantly at 2 hours during the cardioprotective phase after EP.These results suggest that the activated autophagy level during the EP-initiated cardioprotective phase may be partly involved in the cardioprotective effects by maintaining a normal autophagy basal level during the subsequent exhaustive exercise in rat myocardium.