Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) reduces ischemia reperfusion (IR) injury by stimulating adenosine triphosphate (ATP) sensitive potassium channels (KATP) [1-5]. Demonstrating H2S stimulation is unique to KATP, as other inwardly rectifying potassium (Kir) channels demonstrate inhibition or are unaffected [6]. We recently showed that H2S inhibits Kir2 and Kir3 by decreasing channel sensitivity to phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PI(4,5)P2 or PIP2) [6]. Here, we test the hypothesis that H2S regulation of Kir6.2, a pore-forming subunit of the KATP channel, is also dependent on PIP2. Using whole-cell patch-clamp we show that H2S increases the activity of Kir6.2 channels expressed in HEK-293 cells. To study the mechanism, we modulated PIP2 levels by expressing a light- activated phosphatase, or by including high levels of a water-soluble PIP2 analog in the patch pipette. The results suggest that H2S augmentation of Kir6.2 channel activity is increased when PIP2 levels are elevated.

Les maladies cardiovasculaires sont une des principales causes de morbidité et de mortalité au monde. La plus courante est l’infarctus du myocarde définit pathologiquement par la mortalité cellulaire dû à une ischémie prolongée d’une partie du ventricule gauche. L'ischémie est caractérisée par un apport sanguin insuffisant causé par une obstruction d’une artère coronaire. La restauration, en clinique, du flux sanguin, appelée reperfusion, est considérée comme la méthode la plus efficace contre les dommages ischémiques. Paradoxalement, cette restauration du flux sanguin est associée à une exacerbation de la lésion tissulaire, entraînant alors des lésions d'ischémie-reperfusion (I/R). Dans le but de limiter ces lésions, le conditionnement ischémique myocardique est une avancée majeure dans le domaine de la cardioprotection. Ce protocole confère ses effets cardioprotecteurs via le recrutement de divers mécanismes endogènes suivant l’activation de deux voies intracellulaires : la voie RISK (Reperfusion Injury Salvage Kinase) et/ou la voie SAFE (Survivor Activator Factor Enhancer). Ces voies impliquent l'activation de différentes cascades de signalisation et de protéines kinases. En particulier, concernant la voie SAFE, le transducteur de signal et l'activateur de transcription-3 STAT3, a été identifié comme un acteur clé dans le postconditionnement ischémique (PostCI). Il est suggéré que les effets cardioprotecteurs attribués à STAT3 soient liés à ses effets en tant que facteur de transcription et en tant que régulateur de l’activité mitochondriale, mais tout n’est pas encore connu. En revanche, il est admis que STAT3 est activé par la phosphorylation ciblant les résidus tyrosine 705 et sérine 727. Dans nos travaux actuels, nous avions initialement pour objectif d’étudier les rôles cardioprotecteurs mitochondriaux de STAT3 après une I/R et un PostCI. Cependant, nous n'avons pas été en mesure de détecter STAT3 dans les mitochondries de cardiomyocytes adultes de souris, dans des conditions basales et de stress, en utilisant différentes approches. Fait intéressant, nous avons montré une localisation exclusive de STAT3 dans les myocytes cardiaques adultes, le long des tubules T, et nous avons mis en évidence les inconvénients des techniques précédemment utilisées.Outre les rôles putatifs de STAT3 dans les mitochondries, nous avons ciblé ses effets dans la signalisation et la génomique au cours de l'I/R et du PostCI. Nous avons tout d’abord cherché à déterminer, pendant l’I/R et le PostCI, la cinétique temporelle d’activation de STAT3 et des autres kinases de la voie RISK, notamment Akt et les MAPK ERK1 / 2, JNK et p38. En outre, nous avions pour objectif d’étudier les liens entre les voies SAFE et RISK en déchiffrant les liens entre STAT3 et les kinases RISK au cours du PostCI. Nous avons montré qu’après une ischémie et un temps court de reperfusion, STAT3 et ERK1/2 sont activés, et que l’utilisation d’un PostCI active d’autant plus STAT3 en induisant exclusivement la phosphorylation de sa tyrosine. Nous avons également montré que l’interconnexion entre les voies SAFE et RISK, dans le protocole PostCI utilisé, se fait par STAT3 et ERK1/2. À partir de ces résultats, nous nous sommes dirigés vers la génomique grâce à laquelle nous avons étudié l'activité de STAT3 au cours de l'IPoC. À cet égard, nous avons montré que STAT3 est impliqué dans la régulation de la réponse inflammatoire au cours de la PostCI. Dans l’ensemble, cette étude présente une approche globale des fonctions mitochondriales, de signalisation et génomiques de STAT3 dans le contexte de la protection cardiaque / Cardiovascular diseases are leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Among the mostly prevailing cardiovascular diseases is myocardial infarction, which is pathologically defined as myocardial death due to a prolonged ischemia. Ischemia is an insufficient supply of blood caused by a blockade in the coronary arteries. The early restoration of blood flow is considered the most effective method against the ischemic lesions. Paradoxically, this blood flow restoration is associated with an exacerbation of the tissue injury, leading to the ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. To avoid this injury, the myocardial ischemic conditioning protocol has rejuvenated the field of cardioprotection. This protocol confers its cardioprotective effects via recruiting various endogenous mechanisms following the activation of two intracellular pathways: the reperfusion injury salvage kinase (RISK) or survivor activator factor enhancer (SAFE) pathways. These pathways involve the activation of different signaling cascades and protein kinases. Zooming in through the SAFE pathway, the signal transducer and activator of transcription-3, STAT3, has been identified as a prominent key player in ischemic postconditioning (IPoC). The cardioprotective effects attributed to STAT3 are suggested to be linked to its roles as a transcription factor and as a regulator of the mitochondrial activity, but these are not well studied and elaborated. STAT3 is activated by phosphorylation, which targets the tyrosine 705 and serine 727 residues. In our current work, we initially aimed to investigate the mitochondrial cardioprotective roles of STAT3 following I/R and IPoC. However, we were not able to detect STAT3 in the mitochondria of adult mouse cardiomyocytes under variousbasal and stress conditions using different approaches. Interestingly, we showed an exclusive STAT3 pattern in adult cardiac myocytes, along the T-tubules, and highlighted drawbacks of previously used techniques. Aside from the mitochondrial roles of STAT3, we targeted its signaling and genomic roles during I/R and IPoC. We first aimed to determine, during I/R and IPoC, the temporal kinetics of activation of STAT3 and the other kinases of the RISK pathway including Akt and the MAPKs ERK1/2, JNK and p38. In addition, we aimed to decipher the interlink between the SAFE and RISK pathways through deciphering the interlink between STAT3 and the RISK kinases following IPoC. We showed that a short reperfusion time activates STAT3 and ERK1/2 following ischemia, and that the application of IPoC further activates STAT3 through inducing its tyrosine phosphorylation. We also showed that the interlink between SAFE and RISK pathways, in the IPoC protocol we used, is through STAT3 and ERK1/2. From this signaling level, we moved toward the genomic level whereby we investigated the genomic activity of STAT3 during IPoC. In this regard, we have shown that STAT3 is involved in the regulation of the inflammatory response during IPoC. Overall, this study presents a global approach of STAT3’s mitochondrial, signaling and genomic functions in the context of cardiac protection

L’ostéopontine (OPN) est une protéine synthétisée et sécrétée par de nombreux types cellulaires. Elle joue un rôle important dans la régulation de la réponse inflammatoire et immune. Elle est également pro-fibrogénique, et présente des propriétés anti-apoptiques. Les NAFLD et ALD sont les premières causes d’ hépatopathies en France. Le spectre de ces complications va de la stéatose à la stéatohépatite, la fibrose, la cirrhose voire le carcinome hépatocellulaire. Le tissu adipeux joue un rôle important dans la survenue et l’évolution des NAFLD. Nous montrons que l'OPN favorise l'inflammation du foie et du tissu adipeux dans les NAFLD, en favorisant le recrutement de macrophages, de cellules dendritiques et de lymphocytes T et en modulant la polarisation de ces cellules immunes. Chez les patients alcooliques, nous rapportons que l’OPN constitue un marqueur prédictif de la fibrose hépatique. Les lésions induites par l'IR hépatique sont la principale cause de dommages survenant au cours des chirurgies du foie. Le rôle de l'OPN lors de l’IR n’a pas été étudié dans le foie. Mes études ont mis en évidence que l'OPN pourrait jouer un rôle protecteur. Son invalidation (OPN-/-) aggrave les lésions hépatiques (inflammation, souffrance et nécrose hépatocytaire) induites par l’IR chez la souris. Ce rôle protecteur de l’OPN pourrait être dû à sa capacité à prévenir la mort hépatocytaire et à limiter la production toxique de NO dans les macrophages. L’ensemble de ces travaux a permis de mettre en évidence de nouveaux rôles de l'OPN dans les lésions induites par l'IR hépatique et pourrait constituer une cible thérapeutique pour les maladies chroniques du foie. / Osteopontin (OPN) is a protein synthesized and secreted by many different types of cells. It plays an important part in the regulation of the inflammatory and immune response. OPN is also pro-fibrogenic, and has anti-apoptotic properties. The nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and alcoholic liver disease (ALD) are the leading causes of liver disease in France. The range of these complications goes from steatosis to steatohepatitis, fibrosis, cirrhosis and even hepatocellular carcinoma. Adipose tissue plays a significant part on the occurrence and evolution of the NAFLD. We show that OPN facilitates liver’s and adipose tissue’s inflammation in the NAFLD, by facilitating the intake of macrophages, dendritic cells and T cells, and by modulating the polarization of these immune cells. For alcoholic patients, we show that OPN is one of the predictive markers of liver fibrosis. The lesions induced by ischemia-reperfusion (IR) are the main cause of damages occurring during liver’s surgery. The role of OPN in hepatic injury induced by IR has not yet been investigated. My studies demonstrate that OPN could have a protecting role. OPN deficiency in mice (OPN-/-) increases hepatic lesions caused by IR (inflammation, and cell death). OPN could thus partially prevent hepatic injury and inflammation induced by IR. This could be due to its ability to prevent hepatocyte death and production of toxic NO by macrophages. OPN could thus be an important actor in the pathogenesis of chronic liver disease.

Ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury is a severe complication in lung transplantation characterized by inflammation, alveolar damage, and hypoxemia. Alpha 1-antitrypsin (A1AT), a protease inhibitor, is currently used clinically for the treatment of A1AT deficiency emphysema. A1AT has been shown to have the potential to reduce IR injury through its anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic effects. We hypothesized that A1AT will ameliorate IR injury through these effects. We tested A1AT in two models of IR: a cell culture model of simulated lung transplantation and a rat in situ pulmonary ligation model. In cell culture, we found that A1AT exerts its protective effects by inhibiting cell death and inflammatory cytokine release in a dose-dependent manner. In the rat pulmonary ischemia-reperfusion model, we found that A1AT improved lung function by inhibiting apoptosis and inflammation. There is potential for future application of A1AT in the treatment of IR injury in lung transplantation.

Ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury is a severe complication in lung transplantation characterized by inflammation, alveolar damage, and hypoxemia. Alpha 1-antitrypsin (A1AT), a protease inhibitor, is currently used clinically for the treatment of A1AT deficiency emphysema. A1AT has been shown to have the potential to reduce IR injury through its anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic effects. We hypothesized that A1AT will ameliorate IR injury through these effects. We tested A1AT in two models of IR: a cell culture model of simulated lung transplantation and a rat in situ pulmonary ligation model. In cell culture, we found that A1AT exerts its protective effects by inhibiting cell death and inflammatory cytokine release in a dose-dependent manner. In the rat pulmonary ischemia-reperfusion model, we found that A1AT improved lung function by inhibiting apoptosis and inflammation. There is potential for future application of A1AT in the treatment of IR injury in lung transplantation.

Sepsis, a great challenge to the physician, is characterized with massive oxidative stress of tissue, cytokine inflammation and increases in nitric oxide (NO) production. Meanwhile, free radical induced by oxidative stress also injures cell membrane or DNA. The way to terminate free radical chain reaction is to administer antioxidant. The commonly used anesthetic, propofol, was thought to be with antioxidant capacity. In the first part of this thesis, we investigated the different role of oxidative injury and NO via systemic injection of LPS in rats. We demonstrated oxidative injury is associated with both early and late stage whereas NO is engaged primarily in late stage cardiovascular depression. Propofol, a rapid onset and fast recovery anesthetic, is attributed to protect anainst cardiovascular depression via attenuating the late stage NO surge in aorta by inhibition of iNOS upregulation. We also examine the influence of propofol on temporal changes in power density of frequency components of systemic arterial pressure (SAP) variability in rat with sepsis and the role of inducible NO synthase (iNOS). We have the conclusions that iNOS-induced NO might be involved in the manifestation of high-frequency and low-frequency components of the SAP spectrum during endotoxemia when low-dose propofol is used and the effect of NO is blunted when high-dose propofol is administered. Due to further investigation was needed to the cellular protective mechanisms of propofol, we delineate the effect of propofol to free radical related enzymel involved in sepsis via both in vivo and vitro studies with rats subjected to LPS (15 mg/kg) and H9C2, L2, NR8383 (derived from rat cardiac myocyte, lung, macrophage, respectively), respectively. Our results demonstrated that propofol may play the major protective role on iNOS, superoxide dismutase and p47 phox oxidative enzymes on lung epithelial cells. Propofol also provided protective effects on cardiac myocyte and macrophage with suppression of iNOS only although free radical production were all significantly suppressed. Ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury may also produce a lot of free radical and cytokines to cause tissue damage and is common in clinical. We investigated the effect of propofol on free radical and cytokine production via this different model and compared with another rapid recovery anesthesitc, sevoflurane. Aortic decalmping surgery in porcine and their monocyte, aortic and coronary smooth muscle cells were applied for in vivo and in vitro model, respectively. We also demonstrated that propofol but not sevoflurane suppressed the production of free radical and cytokine in monocyte and smooth muscle cells but not in vivo model. In sepsis and IR model that produced a lot free radical and cytokines, propofol eliminated the free redical and cytokines via suppressed different kinds of oxidative enzymes in different cells of different organs to express its protective role. However, as an anesthetic, propofol must be used carefully to perform its maximal benefit.

According to the theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the main etiology of stroke results from blood stasis. Ligustic Rhizoma (LR), a Chinese herb, is considered to stimulate stasis-dispelling. As Tetramethyl Pyrazine (TMP) is a major component of LR, the aim of the present study is to investigate the effects of TMP on cerebral infarct. We establish an animal model of cerebral infarct by occluding the both common carotid arteries and right middle cerebral artery for 90 minutes, then reperfusing for 24 hrs. Effects of TMP on cerebral infarct are evaluated by the ratio of infarction areas and modified neurologica severity scale (mNSS). In addition, we observe the changes of ED1, tumor necrosis factor-£\ (TNF-£\) and interleukin-1£] (IL-1£]) immuno-reacting cells in the infarction region. The founding indicate that pre-treatment with TMP 100 mg/kg, 120 mg/kg and 140 mg/kg, and post-treatment with TMP 100 mg/kg will decrease the ratio of cerebral infarction area and the neurological deficit. Moreover, pre-treatment TMP 100 mg/kg also decreases ED1, TNF-£\ and IL-1£] immuno-reacting cell. In conclusion, TMP can decrease cerebral infarction area and neurological deficit. The effects of TMP, at least in part, are closely related to microglia, TNF-£\ and IL-1£], suggesting that TMP can be used to treat stroke in human.

Ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury occurs during myocardial infarction and during some cardiovascular surgeries. Animal studies support the role of endurance exercise training in preventing myocardial IR injury and coronary endothelial dysfunction. In human and animal studies, habitual exercise has been shown to attenuate endothelial dysfunction caused by aging and disease. It is unknown; however, if exercise can protect against vascular IR injury in humans and if so, whether these effects persist with advancing age. Using 20 minutes of forearm ischemia and the response of the brachial artery as a noninvasive surrogate model for the heart, the association between the mode of exercise training (endurance versus resistance) and vascular IR injury was examined in young healthy adults in the first study. Endothelial function, as measured by flow-mediated dilation (FMD) in the brachial artery, decreased significantly after forearm ischemia, suggesting that this noninvasive model of the heart produces significant and measureable vascular injury. These measures returned to baseline levels within 30 minutes following ischemia, illustrating the transient nature of this form of IR injury. The magnitude of injury and recovery from ischemia were not significantly different among young sedentary, endurance-trained, and resistance-trained subjects, suggesting that exercise training is not associated with protection from vascular IR injury in a young, healthy population. In the second study, the association between aging, endurance exercise training, and vascular IR injury was studied. Twenty minutes of forearm ischemia was associated with a transient fall in brachial FMD in young and older sedentary and endurance-trained subjects. Young subjects recovered more quickly from IR injury than older subjects. Within 30 minutes of injury, the endothelial function of the young group was back to baseline while blunted endothelial function persisted in older subjects for greater than 45 minutes after injury. There was no association between endurance exercise training and enhanced recovery from IR injury. These findings suggest that aging is associated with delayed recovery from vascular IR injury and that endurance training does not appear to modulate the vascular IR injury responses. / text

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