Sheng li xue bao : [Acta physiologica Sinica]
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Endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) is an adaptive process in response to circumstantial changes, but excessive and/or prolonged ERS can induce cell apoptosis. C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP) is a very important marker participating in ERS-associated cell apoptosis, while the role of the myocyte apoptosis induced by CHOP remains unclear in the development of hypertrophy. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of CHOP-mediated ERS-associated apoptosis on myocardial hypertrophy induced by abdominal aortic constriction in rats. ⋯ Correlation analysis indicated a positive correlation between CHOP and Bax expression (r=0.654, P<0.01), and a negative correlation between CHOP and Bcl-2 expression (r=-0.671, P<0.01). These results suggest that abdominal aortic constriction induces a significant up-regulation in ER molecular chaperones at early stage of post-surgery, indicating that ERS response is activated in the rat heart; while prolonged ERS could lead to myocyte apoptosis, and CHOP-mediated ERS-associated apoptosis may contribute to myocardial hypertrophy. We speculate that cell apoptosis may take part in the regulation of myocardial hypertrophy and heart failure, and determine the progression of decompensated hypertrophy.