The Protective Effects Of L-carnitine On The Reperfusion Injury Of Rat Heart Transplantation

Objectives:As the most effective therapy for end-stage heart disease, heart transplantation has been widely used in many medical centers. Reperfusion injury is still the major cause of the early heart failure. The Pathophysiology changes in reperfused hearts include cardiac arrhythmia, myocardial dysfunction, cardiomyocyte, and obstruction of microcirculation. The major causes are free radical, calcium overload and neutrophil activation. But the exact mechanism of the reperfusion injury is not quite sure. How to effectively protect myocardial cell in heart graft is a big question for us to study and research.The injury during ischemia/reperfusion is nonspecific. It will cause the accumulation of many metabolic products, such as lactic acid, proton, Pi and adenosine, and the loss of metabolic substrate, the decrease of heart function and the overload of Ca²⁺ and free radical. What's more, the cascade effect of free radical and the overload of Ca2+ have relationship with cell apoptosis. Reportedly, the exact mechanism is related to cytokine (IL, TNF), adhesion molecule, nuclear factor κB(NF-κB). Evidences now indicate that cardiac myocytes themselves produced...