N-Acetylcysteine enhances cardiac HO-1 protein expression and antioxidant capacity in diabetic rats

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The antioxidant N-acetylcysteine (NAC) restores volatile anesthetic isoflurane-induced preconditioning against myocardial infarction in hyperglycemia (1). However, the mechanism whereby NAC restores isoflurane preconditioning cardioprotection is unclear. Elevated heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) leads to improved postischaemic cardiac function in type 1 diabetes (2), and enhancement of cardiac antioxidant capacity facilitates postischemic myocardial functional recovery (3). Therefore, we hypothesized that NAC …postprin