Ischaemic preconditioning in the rat brain: effect on the activity of several initiation factors, Akt and extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase phosphorylation, and GRP78 and GADD34 expression.

Translational repression induced during reperfusion of the ischaemic brain is significantly attenuated by ischaemic preconditioning. The present work was undertaken to identify the components of the translational machinery involved and to determine whether translational attenuation selectively modifies protein expression patterns during reperfusion. Wistar rats were preconditioned by 5-min sublethal ischaemia and 2 days later, 30-min lethal ischaemia was induced. Several parameters were studied after lethal ischaemia and reperfusion in rats with and without acquired ischaemic tolerance (IT). The phosphorylation pattern of the alpha subunit of eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (eIF2) in rats with IT was exactly the same as in rats without IT, reaching a peak after 30 min reperfusion and returning to control values within 4 h in both the cortex and hippocampus. The levels of phosphorylated eIF4E-binding protein after lethal ischaemia and eIF4E at 30 min reperfusion were higher in rats with IT, notably in the hippocampus. eIF4G levels diminished slightly after ischaemia and reperfusion, paralleling calpain-mediated alpha-spectrin proteolysis in rats with and without IT, but they did not show any further decrease after 30 min reperfusion in rats with IT. The phosphorylated levels of eIF4G, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-protein B (Akt) and extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERKs) were very low after lethal ischaemia and increased following reperfusion. Ischaemic preconditioning did not modify the observed changes in eIF4G phosphorylation. All these results support that translation attenuation may occur through multiple targets. The levels of the glucose-regulated protein (78 kDa) remained unchanged in rats with and without IT. Conversely, our data establish a novel finding that ischaemia induces strong translation of growth arrest and DNA damage protein 34 (GADD34) after 4 h of reperfusion. GADD34 protein was slightly up-regulated after preconditioning, besides, as in rats without IT, GADD34 levels underwent a further clear-cut increase during reperfusion, this time as earlier as 30 min and coincident with translation attenuation.