Novel cardioprotective mechanism for Empagliflozin in nondiabetic myocardial infarction with acute hyperglycemia

Patients with AMI and hyperglycemia upon hospital admission exhibited poorer prognosis compared with those without hyperglycemia. It is unknown whether SGLT2 inhibitors can also improve nondiabetic myocardial infarction (MI) with acute hyperglycemia and the underlying mechanisms. Here we demonstrated that hyperglycemia patients were more likely to have worse cardiac function levels, such as with Killip III/IV during hospitalization. Glucose injection-induced nondiabetic MI accompanied by acute hyperglycemia in WT mice, manifested lower survival compared with control. A significant increase in both survival and LV function was observed when treated with empagliflozin (EMPA). In addition, EMPA attenuated fibrosis and autophagy of border cardiac tissue in mice with MI accompanied by acute hyperglycemia. Applying Beclin1+/- and NHE1 cKO mice, we found that Beclin1 deficiency improved survival. Mechanistically, EMPA had a more significant cardioprotective effect through inhibited its autophagy level by targeted Beclin1 rather than NHE1. In addition, EMPA rescued cardiomyocytes autosis induced by Tat-beclin1 or GD, conferring cardioprotection decreasing autophagic cell death. These findings provide new insights that SGLT2 inhibitor effectively ameliorates the myocardial injury in nondiabetic myocardial infarction with acute hyperglycemia through suppressing beclin1-dependent autosis rather than elusively targeting NHE1 in cardiomyocytes.