Rastaldo R, Cappello S, Folino A, Berta GN, Sprio AE, Losano G, Samaja M, Pagliaro P. Apelin-13 limits infarct size and improves cardiac postischemic mechanical recovery only if given after ischemia. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 300: H2308 -H2315, 2011. First published March 4, 2011 doi:10.1152/ajpheart.01177.2010.-We studied whether apelin-13 is cardioprotective against ischemia/reperfusion injury if given as either a pre-or postconditioning mimetic and whether the improved postischemic mechanical recovery induced by apelin-13 depends only on the reduced infarct size or also on a recovery of function of the viable myocardium. We also studied whether nitric oxide (NO) is involved in apelin-induced protection and whether the reported ischemia-induced overexpression of the apelin receptor (APJ) plays a role in cardioprotection. Langendorffperfused rat hearts underwent 30 min of global ischemia and 120 min of reperfusion. Left ventricular pressure was recorded. Infarct size and lactate dehydrogenase release were determined to evaluate the severity of myocardial injury. Apelin-13 was infused at 0.5 M concentration for 20 min either before ischemia or in early reperfusion, without and with NO synthase inhibition by N G -nitro-L-arginine (L-NNA). In additional experiments, before ischemia also 1 M apelin-13 was tested. APJ protein level was measured before and after ischemia. Whereas before ischemia apelin-13 (0.5 and 1.0 M) was ineffective, after ischemia it reduced infarct size from 54 Ϯ 2% to 26 Ϯ 4% of risk area (P Ͻ 0.001) and limited the postischemic myocardial contracture (P Ͻ 0.001). L-NNA alone increased postischemic myocardial contracture. This increase was attenuated by apelin-13, which, however, was unable to reduce infarct size. Ischemia increased APJ protein level after 15-min perfusion, i.e., after most of reperfusion injury has occurred. Apelin-13 protects the heart only if given after ischemia. In this protection NO plays an important role. Apelin-13 efficiency as postconditioning mimetic cannot be explained by the increased APJ level. APJ receptor; ischemia/reperfusion; myocardial protection; preconditioning APELIN IS THE ENDOGENOUS LIGAND for the G protein-coupled APJ receptor. Human, mouse, rat, and cow apelin genes encode a 77-amino acid preprotein with the active sequence in the COOH-terminal region (19,43). Various fragments of apelin have been isolated and classified according to the number of amino acids. Among fragments, apelin-13 and -36 are the most frequently studied, and apelin-13 is considered the most active of them (40). Apelin receptors APJ have been found to be similar to angiotensin II receptor type 1 (25,30,43), but angiotensin II does not bind to APJ receptors (14, 30).Apelin mRNA is expressed in several organs and tissues. In the cardiovascular system, apelin and APJ receptors occur in vascular smooth muscle, endothelial cells, and cardiomyocytes (21,22). Apelin exerts a positive inotropic effect (2, 42) and a nitric oxide (NO)-driven vasodilator activity (14, 15). It protect...