Effect of epinephrine on myocardial ischemia-related gene expressions in cultured rat cardiomyocytes

Epinephrine is a physiologically essential catecholamine for survival and an important pharmacological agent in acute management of cardiac arrest. However, recent studies have demonstrated that prolonged exposure to epinephrine exerts some detrimental effects on the body and cardiac physiology, resulting in adverse clinical outcomes. Our study investigated the effects of in-vitro exposure to epinephrine for 48 hours on gene expression in cultured rat cardiomyocytes. We observed an increased expression of three different genes, namely MMP2 (+ 2.092 times), PDE4b (3.881 times) and TNT2 (2.621 times). Based on the known function of these genes’ products, we could deduce that their overexpression can lead to myocardial fibrosis with resultant compromised cardiac contractility and diastolic dysfunction, which may partly be responsible for the observed negative clinical consequences of epinephrine exposure. This preliminary study seems to be inadequate to establish any cause-effect relationship. Further investigations will be needed to elucidate the clinical significance of the observed gene up-regulations.