Abstract 562 Endocrinology & Diabetes II Platform, Saturday, 5/1

The role of GH in the maintenance of cardiac structure and function is a major area of current clinical investigation. However the cellular and molecular basis of GH's actions on the heart remain poorly defined. In particular since GH can elicit the production of IGF-1 and IGF-1 can itself affect the structure/function of the cardiomyocyte (CM), it is not clear whether GH has a direct effect on the myocardium. Isolated rat neonatal CM is a standard and accepted model for studying mammalian cardiac cell physiology and has been extensively used to examine the effects of IGF-1 on CM. To determine if cultured CM is an appropriate model in which to study the effects of GH, we measured GH receptor (GHR) mRNA levels by RT-PCR in RNA from intact rat heart or from cultured CM. During isolation/culture, GHR mRNA levels in CM significantly decrease compared with intact heart, thus explaining previous observations that GH treatment has no effect on cultured rat neonatal CM.

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