Endothelium and myocardial protecting actions of taprostene, a stable prostacyclin analogue, after acute myocardial ischemia and reperfusion in cats.

Abstract
The effects of taprostene, a synthetic prostacyclin analogue, were investigated in a 6-hour model of myocardial ischemia (MI) with reperfusion in anesthetized cats. Taprostene (100 ng/kg/min) was infused intravenously starting 30 minutes postocclusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery followed by reperfusion 1 hour later, and the cats were observed for an additional 4.5 hours. Taprostene infusion resulted in significantly lower plasma creatine phosphokinase activities at every time from 3 to 6 hours for the MI + taprostene group compared with the MI + vehicle group and were not significantly different when compared with sham MI controls. The areas at risk, expressed as a percentage of the total left ventricular weights, were not significantly different between the MI groups. However, the necrotic area expressed as a percentage of the myocardial area at risk was significantly lower in the taprostene-treated cats compared with the untreated MI group (p less than 0.01). Cardiac myeloperoxidase ...