Cardiomyocyte Autophagia and Morphological Alterations in the Left Ventricular Myocardium during Acute Focal Ischemia.

In experiments on rabbits we evaluated the intensity of cardiomyocyte autophagia by the level beclin-1 protein and morphology of the left ventricular myocardium on days 1, 3, and 5 after the onset of focal ischemia caused by ligation of the descending branch of the left coronary artery. The morphological alterations in the left ventricular myocardium were accompanied by intensification of cardiomyocyte autophagia, which attained maximum on postligation day 1.