Considerable evidence suggests that reactive oxygen species (ROS) are crucially involved in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases, such as myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury. Consistent with this notion, administration of exogenous antioxidative compounds has been shown to provide protection against oxidative cardiac injury. However, whether induction of endogenous cellular antioxidants by chemicals (drugs) also offers protection against oxidative cardiac injury has not been extensively investigated. In the present study, with rat cardiomyocyte H9C2 cells as an in vitro model, we have investigated the induction of cellular antioxidants by the unique chemoprotective agent, 3H-1,2-dithiole-3-thione (D3T) and the protective effects of the D3T-induced cellular antioxidants against ROS-mediated injury in cardiac cells. Incubation of H9C2 cells with micromolar concentrations of D3T for 24 h resulted in a significant induction of a battery of cellular antioxidants, including reduced glutathione (GSH), GSH peroxidase, GSSG reductase, GSH S-transferase and catalase. To further examine the protective effects of the induced endogenous antioxidants against oxidative cell injury, H9C2 cells were pre-treated with D3T and then incubated with xanthine oxidase (XO) plus xanthine, a system that generates ROS. We observed that D3T pre-treatment of H9C2 cells led to significant protection against XO/xanthine-induced cytotoxicity as determined by 3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) reduction and morphological changes. Taken together, this study demonstrates for the first time that a number of endogenous antioxidants in cardiomyocytes can be induced by exposure to D3T, and that this chemical (drug) induction of cellular antioxidants is accompanied by markedly increased resistance to ROS-mediated cardiac cell injury. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
