Kong, Jennifer Y., and Simon W. Rabkin. Palmitateinduced cardiac apoptosis is mediated through CPT-1 but not influenced by glucose and insulin. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 282: H717-H725, 2002; 10.1152/ajpheart.00257. 2001.-To test the hypothesis that regulation of palmitate metabolism, through carnitine palmitoyl transferase-1 (CPT-1) or through alterations of glycolysis, was involved in the pathway of palmitate-mediated cell death, cardiomyocytes were cultured from 7-day-old chick embryos. Palmitateinduced cell death, assessed by the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide assay, was enhanced by carnitine, a cofactor needed for palmitate transport into mitochondria via CPT-1. Carnitine co-incubation with palmitate significantly (P Ͻ 0.01) increased the amount of apoptotic cells, assessed by propidium iodine staining and fluorescent-activated cell sorting analysis compared with treatment with either palmitate or carnitine alone. The CPT-1 inhibitor oxfenicine significantly (P Ͻ 0.05) blocked the cell death induced by the combination of palmitate and carnitine. The short-chain saturated fatty acid capric acid (100 M), which is not likely transported by CPT-1, did not significantly affect cell viability, whereas the C18 saturated fatty acid stearic (100 M) significantly (P Ͻ 0.01) reduced cell viability and to a similar extent as palmitate. In contrast, there was no significant alteration of palmitate-induced cell death by cotreatment with 100 nM insulin ϩ 2 g/l glucose or 1 mM lactate, which promote ATP generation by glycolysis rather than fatty acid oxidation. Fumonisin did not alter palmitate-induced cell death or apoptosis, suggesting that the effect of palmitate was not operative through increased ceramide synthesis. These results suggest that oxidation of palmitate through CPT-1 is involved in the production of apoptosis in cardiomyocytes.carnitine; fatty acid metabolism; oxfenicine; fumonisin; palmitate; capric acid FATTY ACIDS ARE A PRINCIPAL source of energy for the heart, and the metabolism of fatty acids is of fundamental importance for cardiac function (for reviews, see Refs. 23,24,48). Briefly, fatty acid metabolism involves fatty acids binding to carrier binding proteins that are transported across the sarcolemmal membrane, and once inside the cell are metabolized to long chain acyl-CoA by acyl-CoA synthetase (23,24,48). The acyl moieties are transferred to the mitochondria by a series of enzymes involving carnitine palmitoyl transferase-1 and -2 (CPT-1 and -2) as well as carnitine-acylcarnitine translocase. In the mitochondria, long-chain acyl-CoA is subjected to -oxidation-producing acetyl CoA, a fatty acyl moiety less two carbons, and the by-products, reduced flavin adenine dinucleotide and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. Fatty acid oxidation also occurs in peroxisomes (23,24,48) but the amount is small (9).