Role of kinins in the cardioprotective effect of preconditioning: study of myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury in B2 kinin receptor knockout mice and kininogen-deficient rats.
Kinins acting on the B2 receptor appear to be involved in the cardioprotective effect of preconditioning on myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury. We tested the hypothesis that in mice lacking the gene encoding for the B2 kinin receptor (B2 knockout mice; B2-KO) as well as in rats deficient in high-molecular-weight (HMW) kininogen (Brown Norway Katholiek rats; BNK), the cardioprotective effect of preconditioning is diminished or abolished. 129SvEvTac (SV129) mice and Brown Norway rats (BN) served as controls. We confirmed that plasma HMW kininogen in BNK rats was 100-fold lower than in BN and 140-fold lower than in Sprague-Dawley rats (33+/-4 versus 1814+/-253 and 2397+/-302 ng/mL, P