Expression Of Glycine Receptor In Rat Cardiomyocytes

Objective:Ischemic heart disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the clinic, the main reason of this disease is myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (MI/R) injury. It is an important and urgent topic to find effective medications and methods to treat the injury and protect the myocardium. In our previous work, we have demostrated that glycine(Gly) is a perspective protective agent to MI/R injury, and it may exert the effects through glycine receptor (GlyR). However, up to now, there has been no certain evidence to identify the existence of GlyR in the myocardium, further in the membrane of cardiomyocytes. Based on the former research, the gene and protein expression of GlyR was detected in rat cardiac tissue and cardiomyocytes membrane with molecular biology methods in this study.Methods:This study included two parts. Firstly, Total RNA was extracted from cardiac tissue of adult rats and primary cultured cardiomyocytes from neonatal rat hearts, αl and β subunits mRNA of GlyR were detected with the method of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Secondly, we examined the membrane protein of GlyRal and β subunits from the same tissue and cells with the method of western blotting.Results:The mRNA and protein expression of GlyR β subunit were identified in adult rat cardiac tissue and cultured cardiomyocytes , similar to the sequence and immunogenicity generated from GlyR β subunit of rat spinal cord; for al subunit, only mRNA similar to GlyR of rat spinal cord was found in cultured cardiomyocytes.