Activation of prosurvival signaling pathways during the memory phase of volatile anesthetic preconditioning in human myocardium: a pilot study.

According to a compelling body of evidence anesthetic preconditioning (APC) attenuates the deleterious consequences of ischemia-reperfusion and protects the heart through a mechanism similar to ischemic preconditioning. The present study was purported to investigate the intracellular signaling pathways activated in human myocardium in response to a preconditioning protocol with two different volatile anesthetics, namely isoflurane and sevoflurane. To this aim, phosphorylation of PKCα and -δ, ERK1/2, Akt, and GSK3β was determined at the end of the APC protocol, in human atrial samples harvested from patients undergoing open-heart surgery. The results demonstrate that preconditioning with volatile anesthetics triggers the activation of PKCδ and -α isoforms and of prosurvival kinases, ERK1/2, and Akt, while inhibiting their downstream target GSK3β during the memory phase.