Isosteviol prevents the prolongation of action potential in hypertrophied cardiomyoctyes by regulating transient outward potassium and L-type calcium channels.

Cardiac hypertrophy is a thickening of the heart muscle that is associated with cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension and myocardial infarction. It occurs initially as an adaptive process against increased workloads and often leads to sudden arrhythmic deaths. Studies suggest that the lethal arrhythmia is attributed to hypertrophy-induced destabilization of cardiac electrical activity, especially the prolongation of the action potential. The reduced activity of Ito is demonstrated to be responsible for the ionic mechanism of prolonged action potential duration and arrhythmogeneity. Isosteviol (STV), a derivative of stevioside, plays a protective role in a variety of stress-induced cardiac diseases. Here we report effects of STV on rat ISO-induced hypertrophic cardiomyocytes. STV alleviated ISO-induced hypertrophy of cardiomyocytes by decreasing cell area of hypertrophied cardiomyocytes. STV application prevented the prolongation of action potential which was prominent in hypertrophied cells. The decrease and increase of current densities for Ito and ICaL observed in hypertrophied myocytes were both prevented by STV application. In addition, the results of qRT-PCR suggested that the changes of electrophysiological activity of Ito and ICaL are correlated to the alterations of the mRNA transcription level.