Pretreatment with Atrial Natriuretic Peptide Leads to Inhibition of Caspase–3 in Vivo – Involvement of PI 3-Kinase-Pathway and Bad

Aims: Pretreatment with Atrial Natriuretic Peptide (ANP) reduces ischemia-reperfusion injury in isolated perfused rat livers by prevention of apoptotic and necrotic cell death (Gerwig et al., J. Hepatol. 2003, 39: 341–48). A central role in antiapoptotic signalling in the liver was previously assigned to the phosphatidylinositol–3-kinase (PI 3-kinase)-pathway and protein kinase B/Akt (Hong et al., Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 2000, 279: 974–79, Imose et al., Liver Int. 2003, 23(5): 386–96). Aim of study: To investigate whether ANP preconditioning mediates antiapoptotic effects in vivo and to elucidate a possib…