ABSTRACT
The effects of testosterone on cardiovascular homeostasis are still not well understood. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effects of testosterone in the absence or presence of inhibition of Aromatase (4-hydroxyandrostenedione) and/or 5α reductase (Finasteride) enzymatic activities on the myocardial remodeling 30 days after ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury in gonadectomized rats. Results showed that testosterone administration to ORX rats resulted in decreased myocardial damaged area, inflammatory infiltrates and reduced MMP-3 and 13 expressions. Interestingly, Finasteride administration resulted in a greater decrease in scar tissue, inflammatory infiltrates, along with a significant decrease in MMP-3 and 13 expressions. In contrast, 4-hydroxyandrostenedione administrations increased all parameters. Our results suggest that testosterone does not have a direct effect since simultaneous inhibition of aromatase and 5α-reductase did not induce significant changes in I/R induced myocardial injury.
Footnotes
Competing interests
Dr Ceballos is a stockholder of Cardero Therapeutics, Inc., all rest of the authors state that they do not have any financial or other relationships that might lead to a conflict of interest.
Author contributions
Conceptualization: N.N., G.C., E.M.-B.; Methodology: O.M., A.R., M.G., J.R., I.P., I.R.-G., I.R.-S., N.N., G.C.; Validation: I.R.-S., G.C.; Formal analysis: M.G., I.R.-G., I.R.-S., N.N., G.C.; Investigation: O.M., A.R., J.R., I.P., E.M.-B.; Data curation: I.P.; Writing - original draft: O.M., E.M.; Writing - review & editing: N.N., G.C.; Project administration: G.C.; Funding acquisition: G.C.
Funding
This work was supported by a grant from Programa de Mejoramiento del Profesorado [PROMEP 103.5/08/3102] to E.M.B, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología [grant # 253769] to G.C. and Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología fellowship [223287] to O.M.
- Received January 21, 2019.
- Accepted April 17, 2019.
- © 2019. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
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