Increased inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression in human myocardial infarction

Increased inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression has been reported in heart failure, cardiomyopathies, and arteriosclerosis. iNOS is expressed in the heart upon inflammatory stimuli and produces excessive amounts of nitric oxide (NO). The overproduction of NO is cytotoxic and involved in...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of legal medicine 2020-03, Vol.134 (2), p.575-581
Main Authors: Wilmes, Verena, Scheiper, Stefanie, Roehr, Winta, Niess, Constanze, Kippenberger, Stefan, Steinhorst, Katja, Verhoff, Marcel A., Kauferstein, Silke
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arteriosclerosis
Forensic Medicine
Heart attacks
Heart diseases
Medical Law
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Myocardial infarction
Myocardium
Nitric oxide
Original Article
Oxidative stress
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Increased inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression has been reported in heart failure, cardiomyopathies, and arteriosclerosis. iNOS is expressed in the heart upon inflammatory stimuli and produces excessive amounts of nitric oxide (NO). The overproduction of NO is cytotoxic and involved in cardiovascular diseases. Furthermore, iNOS produces superoxide anion which proceeds with NO to the harmful oxidant peroxynitrite, causing oxidative stress in the heart. The aim of the study was to gain new insights into the role of iNOS in human myocardial infarction (MI) and its contribution to oxidative stress in the heart. Furthermore, we investigated the unaffected myocardium of the infarction hearts, to study if iNOS expression is increased, probably as an indicator for oxidative stress. Our results show a significant increase ( p  = 0.013) of the iNOS expression in the affected regions of MI hearts ( n  = 9) in comparison with healthy control hearts ( n  = 4). In the unaffected regions of MI hearts, an increase in the iNOS expression in some samples was found as well. Our study demonstrated the direct detection of iNOS mRNA in human myocardial tissue. The balance between beneficial and deleterious effects of iNOS may be particularly influenced by the presence or absence of concurrent oxidative stress.
ISSN:0937-9827
1437-1596
DOI:10.1007/s00414-019-02051-y