Prospects for Creation of Cardioprotective and Antiarrhythmic Drugs Based on Opioid Receptor Agonists

  • Med Res Rev. 2016 Sep;36(5):871-923. doi: 10.1002/med.21395.
Leonid N Maslov  1 ,  Igor Khaliulin  2 ,  Peter R Oeltgen  3 ,  Natalia V Naryzhnaya  1 ,  Jian-Ming Pei  4 ,  Stephen A Brown  3 ,  Yury B Lishmanov  1  5 ,  James M Downey  6
Affiliations
  • 1. Research Institute for Cardiology, Tomsk, Russia.
  • 2. School of Clinical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
  • 3. VA Medical Center, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY.
  • 4. Department of Physiology, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, P. R. China.
  • 5. National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University, 634050, Tomsk, Russia.
  • 6. University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL.
PMID: 27197922 DOI: 10.1002/med.21395
Abstract

It has now been demonstrated that the μ, δ1 , δ2 , and κ1 Opioid Receptor (OR) agonists represent the most promising group of opioids for the creation of drugs enhancing cardiac tolerance to the detrimental effects of ischemia/reperfusion (I/R). Opioids are able to prevent necrosis and Apoptosis of cardiomyocytes during I/R and improve cardiac contractility in the reperfusion period. The OR agonists exert an infarct-reducing effect with prophylactic administration and prevent reperfusion-induced cardiomyocyte death when ischemic injury of heart has already occurred; that is, opioids can mimic preconditioning and postconditioning phenomena. Furthermore, opioids are also effective in preventing ischemia-induced arrhythmias.

Keywords
cardioprotection; heart; ischemia/reperfusion injury; opioids; signal transduction.
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