Endocrine Abstracts

We have uncovered the entire functional oxytocin (OT) system in the rat and human heart. In the experimentally-induced myocardial infarction (MI) in rats, the continuous OT delivery improves the cardiac work, reduces inflammation, and stimulates angiogenesis. We hypothesized that these actions of OT are mediated by increase in glucose uptake in cardiomyocytes (CM). Indeed OT (10 nM) increased basal glucose uptake in CM to 4.0±0.2 fmol/mg protein in comparison to 2.2 fmol/...

The functional oxytocin (OT) system is present in the heart and stimulate cardiomyocyte (CM) differentiation of embryonic stem cells. Presently, we are reporting that the OT stimulates CM differentiation of stem cells isolated from the rat heart and termed as side population cells (SP). Specifically, the phenotype of SP-CD31(−) cells, but not SP-CD31(+) cells, proliferate in the presence of OT; the OT treatment promote cell aggregation, and then stimulate differentiation...