Patients with diabetes exhibit a high incidence of diabetic cardiomyopathy and vascular complications, which underlie the development of retinopathy, nephropathy, and neuropathy and increase the risk of hypertension, stroke, and myocardial infarction. There is emerging evidence that the activation of the nuclear enzyme poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) importantly contributes to the development of endothelial dysfunction in a streptozotocin-induced model of diabetes. We investigated the role of PARP activation in the pathogenesis of cardiac dysfunction in streptozotocin-induced and genetic (nonobese diabetic) models of diabetes in rats and mice. Development of diabetes was accompanied by hyperglycemia, cardiac PARP activation, a selective loss of endothelium-dependent vasodilation in the thoracic aorta, and an early diastolic dysfunction of the heart. Treatment with a novel potent phenanthridinonebased PARP inhibitor, PJ34, starting 1 week after the onset of diabetes, restored normal vascular responsiveness and significantly improved cardiac dysfunction, despite the persistence of severe hyperglycemia. The beneficial effect of PARP inhibition persisted even after several weeks of discontinuation of the treatment. Thus, PARP activation plays a central role in the pathogenesis of diabetic cardiovascular (cardiac as well as endothelial) dysfunction. PARP inhibitors may exert beneficial effects against the development of cardiovascular complications in diabetes. Diabetes 51:514 -521, 2002 P oly(ADP ribose) polymerase (PARP), also known as poly(ADP ribose) synthetase (PARS), is an abundant nuclear enzyme of eukaryotic cells that participates in DNA repair in response to genotoxic stress. When activated by DNA single-strand breaks, PARP initiates an energy-consuming cycle by transferring ADP ribose units from NAD ϩ to nuclear proteins. This process results in rapid depletion of the intracellular NAD ϩ and ATP pools, slowing the rate of glycolysis and mitochondrial respiration, eventually leading to cellular dysfunction and death (1-7). Overactivation of PARP represents an important mechanism of tissue damage in various pathological conditions associated with oxidant stress, including myocardial reperfusion injury (4), stroke (3), shock (7,8), and autoimmune -cell destruction (5,6). Recently, we reported that the activation of PARP importantly contributes to the development of endothelial dysfunction in a streptozotocin (STZ)-induced model of diabetes in mice (9,10).Cardiovascular complications are the most common cause of morbidity and mortality in diabetic patients. The presence of myocardial dysfunction independent of coronary artery disease in diabetes, known as "diabetic cardiomyopathy," has been well documented in both humans and animals (11-15). Diabetic cardiomyopathy is characterized by an early diastolic dysfunction and a late systolic one, with intracellular retention of calcium and sodium and loss of potassium. The mechanism of diastolic dysfunction remains unknown, but it does not appear to be due to cha...