Cardioprotective effect of MCI-186 (3-methyl-1-phenyl-2-pyrazolin-5-one) during acute ischemia-reperfusion injury in rats

Abstract

MCI-186 (3-methyl-1-phenyl-2-pyrazolin-5-one), a free radical scavenger, has the ability to stimulate prostacyclin release and to inhibit the lipoxygenase pathway in the arachidonic acid cascade. The authors investigated the cytoprotective effect of MCI-86 in a reperfusion model of myocardial ischemia. Rats were subjected to occlusion of the left coronary artery for ten minutes followed by reperfusion for twenty-four hours. The loss of myocardial creatine kinase activity (CK) from the left ventricular free wall (LVFW) twenty-four hours after the induction of myocardial ischemia was used as an index of ischemic damage. Administration of MCI-186 (3 mg/kg IV) significantly blunted the depletion of LVFW-CK activity when compared with vehicle (MCI-186 vs vehicle, 31.5 ± 1.1 vs 26.5 ± 1.2 U/mg protein, respectively, p < 0.01). In another group of rats that underwent coronary artery occlusion—reperfusion, infarct size was measured by planimetry on histologic sections of serial slices of the left ventricle and was found to be 20.0 ± 1.3% of the left ventricle in vehicle-treated rats and 10.7 ± 1.3% in MCI-186 (3 mg/kg)-treated rats (p < 0.01). These results indicate the potential usefulness of MCI-186 in myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury.