Cardiomyocyte apoptosis with enhanced expression of P53 and Bax in right ventricle after pulmonary arterial banding.

The aim of this study is to investigate whether the cardiomyocyte apoptosis is induced after experimental right-sided pressure overload and whether the expression of proapoptotic factor is altered or not. Ten-week-old male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to right ventricular overload by experimental coarctation of the main pulmonary artery. In pulmonary artery-banded rats, TUNEL method revealed that positive nuclei were observed in cardiomyocytes exclusively in the right ventricle, and Northern blot analysis showed that p53 mRNA level in the right ventricle was 6.2-fold higher at the day 1 than that in sham-operated rats and its level decreased gradually. Bax mRNA in the right ventricle was also increased 3.3-fold at the day 1 in pulmonary artery-banded rats and also gradually decreased. The immunohistochemical study revealed that the immunoreactivity of P53 and Bax was observed exclusively in the right ventricle of the pulmonary artery-banded group. These results demonstrated that the occurrence of TUNEL-positive cardiomyocytes in the acute pressure overload was accompanied by the enhanced expression of apoptosis inducers. It is suggested that acute pressure overload is a potent apoptotic stimulus for cardiomyocytes.