HIF-1α may provide only short-term protection against ischemia-reperfusion injury in Sprague-Dawley myocardial cultures.

Hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1α) exerts an important role in protecting against cardiac tissue damage, for example, following ischemia-reperfusion (I/R), although the time frame during which it acts has yet to be fully elucidated. In the present study, a culture model of myocardial cells from Sprague-Dawley rats was used to examine the expression levels of HIF-1α and various downstream effectors at different times following I/R. The levels of HIF-1α were manipulated by overexpressing HIF-1α prior to I/R. HIF-1α levels peaked at 6 h following I/R, subsequently decreasing to low levels. The levels of downstream effectors peaked at 48 h, and decreased almost to pre-I/R levels by 72 h. These results suggest that HIF-1α and its downstream targets offer only short-term protection following I/R. These results may have implications for the treatment of I/R-associated injury in a variety of clinical contexts.