The Effects of a PPARα Agonist on Myocardial Damage in Obese Diabetic Mice With Heart Failure

Recent studies have confirmed that PPARalpha agonists have not brought the anticipated benefits to patients with type 2 diabetes and potentially fatal heart disease. We hypothesized that such agonists may have a cardio-suppressive effect in treating such disorders, therefore, we inoculated diabetic KKAy mice with encephalomyocarditis virus (EMCv) to induce a diabetic model with severe myocardial damage. WY14643, a potent PPARalpha agonist, was administered intraperitoneally either simultaneously (WY14643-late group) or 3 days before viral inoculation (WY14643-early group). WY14643-treated mice, especially those in the WY14643-early group, had higher mortality than those in the vehicle-treated group (vehicle) in the first 5 days after EMCv inoculation. However, the survival rate in the vehicle group decreased rapidly after day 4 and was the lowest of all 3 groups by day 9. The WY14643-treated mice showed reduced body weight and blood glucose, improved myocardial pathological changes, lower cardiac TNF-alpha expression, and significantly higher adiponectin expression, whereas the LW/LC ratio was lower and cardiac UCP3 mRNA expression higher in the WY14643 treatment groups than in the vehicle group on day 4. WY14643 therefore has cardioprotective and cardio-suppressive effects when used to treat EMCv-induced myocarditis in diabetic mice. The cardioprotective effect may be due to its anti-inflammatory properties and its ability to increase cardiac adiponectin expression, whereas the reduced cardiac efficiency may be due to its enhancement of cardiac UCP3 mRNA expression.