Nonanticoagulant heparin prevents coronary endothelial dysfunction after brief ischemia-reperfusion injury in the dog.

P C Kouretas, Y D Kim, P A Cahill, A K Myers, L N To, Y N Wang, J V Sitzmann, R L Hannan

Index: Circulation 99 , 1062-1068, (1999)

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Abstract

Coronary endothelial dysfunction after brief ischemia-reperfusion (IR) remains a clinical problem. We investigated the role of heparin and N-acetylheparin, a nonanticoagulant heparin derivative, in modulating coronary endothelial function after IR injury, with an emphasis on defining the role of the nitric oxide (NO)-cGMP pathway in the heparin-mediated effect.Male mongrel dogs were surgically instrumented, and the effects of both bovine heparin and N-acetylheparin on coronary endothelial vasomotor function, expressed as percent change from baseline flow after acetylcholine challenge, were studied after 15 minutes of regional ischemia of the left anterior descending artery (LAD) followed by 120 minutes of reperfusion. In dogs treated with placebo (saline), coronary vasomotor function was significantly (P