The role of hypoxia-inducible factor-1 and vascular endothelial growth factor in late-phase preconditioning with xenon, isoflurane and levosimendan in rat cardiomyocytes

Abstract

We found that the stimulation of late-phase preconditioning involves several distinct pathways that are variably addressed by the different stimuli. In contrast to isoflurane treatment, xenon-induced preconditioning does not lead to an increase in COX-2 gene transcription but to a significant increase in HIF-1α and subsequently VEGF.