Dr. Patel and colleagues from University of California in San Diego reported results of their interesting study about the role of caveolar microdomains and δ-opioid receptors in protection of adult rat cardiac myocytes from ischemic cell death. They tested the hypothesis that that opioid receptors (OR), which are capable of producing cardiac protection in vivo, promote cardiac protection in cardiac myocytes in a caveolae-dependent manner. The authors used tools of quantitative colocalization to determine colocalization of DOR with caveolin-3 (Cav-3), a structural component of caveolae in muscle cells. CoLocalizer Pro software was used for this task. They also investigated the effect of the treatment with methyl-β-cyclodextrin (MβCD), which binds cholesterol and disrupts caveolae. It was found that MβCD fully attenuated the protective effects of ischemic preconditioning or SNC-121, a selective DOR agonist, resulting in cell death comparable to that of the ischemic group. By contrast, SNC-induced protection was not abrogated in cells incubated with cholesterol-saturated MCD, which maintained caveolae structure and function. This article suggests a key role for caveolae, perhaps through enrichment of signaling molecules, in contributing to protection of cardiac myocytes from ischemic damage. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 2006, 291:H344-H350.
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