Objective: To investigate the effect of endocannabinoid system on cardiac hypertrophy in experimental rats with chronic intermittent hypoxia and to study the impact of endocannabinoid antagonist, rimonabant in such pathological processing.
Methods: A total of 48 male Wistar rats were divided into 6 groups. 4 and 6 weeks of Normal control group, 4 and 6 weeks of Hypoxia group, 4 and 6 weeks of Hypoxia with rimonabant intervention group. n=8 in each group. The rats were sacrificed to measure left ventricular mass index (LVMI), the myocardial cell morphological changes were observed by optical microscope, the expression of cardiac calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) and cardiotrophin-1 (CT-1) were detected by immunohistochemistry at 4 and 6 weeks respectively.
Results: Compared with 4 and 6 weeks of Normal control group, the LVMI, cardiac hypertrophy condition, CaMKII and CT-1 were increased in 4 and 6 weeks of Hypoxia group, all P<0.001. Compared with Normal control group and Hypoxia group, the above indexes in Hypoxia with rimonabant intervention group were higher than those in Normal control group while lower than those in Hypoxia group, all P<0.001.
Conclusion: The Chronic intermittent hypoxia could induce myocardial hypertrophy via endocannabinoid system disorders, such pathological processing could be reduced by rimonabant intervention.