Cox-2 Inhibition Protects against Hypoxia/Reoxygenation-Induced Cardiomyocyte Apoptosis via Akt-Dependent Enhancement of iNOS Expression

Figure 4

Inhibition of COX-2 activity attenuates H/R-induced cell injury and apoptosis in primary adult rat cardiomyocytes. (a) The release of LDH and (b) cell viability in primary adult rat cardiomyocytes with or without H/R treatment (45 min hypoxia followed by 2 h reoxygenation) in the presence or absence of NS398. The LDH leakage and cell viability were expressed against those in CTL group. (c) Representative original Western blots of cleaved caspase-3 and total caspase-3 in primary adult rat cardiomyocytes with or without H/R treatment in the presence or absence of NS398. Quantification of cleaved caspase-3 was normalized to total caspase-3. Data are shown as means ± SEM; CTL versus H/R, H/R versus H/R + NS398 (one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s test in (a), (b) and nonparametric Mann–Whitney U test in (c)); per group.

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